so long and thanks for all the fish, Chicago.

{14 June 2009}


Goodbye house

goodbye apartments: my beloved two-flat on winona with trees at every window, the apartment on belmont with the noisy garbage trucks in the alley and vomit-stained sidewalks and tranny hookers out at 4am, the tiny studio on belden that was so small i could reach out of bed and touch the oven door where we sat on the floor and ate pasta and read the classifieds looking for jobs ~ goodbye running on the shores of lake michigan at sunrise, hot summer days and cool crisp fall mornings ~ bye to the many colors and moods of the lake, as many variations as there are days of the year: silvery like a fish and other days deep bluey-green, summer days navy blue and dotted with white sailboats, stormy muddy brown, waves breaking on the icy january rocks, glassy and reflective, clouds heavy with rain piled on the horizon, or the last time i saw it: 5am, sun rising, a red disc leaving a streak of red across the water’s surface, glassy but always in motion, a moment of stillness in a month of chaos. goodbye thanksgiving dinners at the keenans’ house full of laughter and love and warmth ~ the scent of incense at the dojo and the way the low evening light streams in the windows ~ the searing pain of a broken heart and life plans gone awry, the regina spektor album i listened to that first, excruciating winter on my own. goodbye to finding common ground bitching about the CTA and the never-ending winters and corrupt politicians and potholes the size of tiger traps ~ the smell of cobalt blue grease paint ~ the redeye crossword ~ the banana french toast at Over Easy ~ the day each spring when the leaves burst forth in hyde park, a canopy of green after months of barreness ~ grant park the night obama won the election ~ waking to the soothing tones of chicago public radio every morning. so long, lawn chairs saving dug-out parking spaces in the snowy streets ~ the unpleasant grind of evening traffic on lake shore drive ~ playing ultimate frisbee in 8″ of fresh snow ~ intelligentsia coffee ~ my first marathon ~ the way a fresh snowfall blankets the city in a profound quiet ~ the first time i saw a firefly ~ drinking beer on the porch on warm summer nights ~ the lurking gargoyles atop harold washington library. bye to putting up plays in bars and alleys ~ the view of the chicago skyline driving up LSD from the south side at night ~ that moment when late night becomes early morning, steeped in terrible coffee at the Golden Nugget ~ Jefferson Park el station and the city planners who clearly hate people ~ the smell of chocolate on the breeze drifting over downtown ~ nerd nights with the boys playing Battle Star Galactica the board game (oh yes, i did just own up to that). goodbye to the city where i grew up: i arrived here still a kid and somewhere in the last six years i grew up.

a dear and wise friend reminded me yesterday that i wasn’t leaving any of chicago behind; it’s all still here if and when i want to come back to it, and in the mean time, it’s all still in my heart. i’m just making my life bigger. i’m expanding it to include the adventures that lay ahead in california. my love of symmetry begs for a complementary list of things i’m going forward to in califronia, but that list doesn’t really exist yet. i don’t know what i’ll find out there. so tonight i’m looking back. tomorrow forward.

love you, chi-town.

Exit Chicago

{09 June 2009}

i might have taken it a little personally, or have been put out by the fact that i waited in line for 20 minutes only to have the buyer at Buffalo Exchange refuse to purchase a single articles of clothing*, were it not for the fact that, with all the time i had to gaze around the store, i realized that i have no desire to look anything any of the ridiculous hipster kids slinking around the store. is this a sign that i’m officially old and cranky? i’m pretty sure yes. another sign of becoming old and cranky is that you no longer care that the hipster kids turn their noses up at my cast-off b-rep clothing. also, i am indifferent to clothing labels and lines, and so i don’t get much fancier when it comes to labels than things like b-rep and j.crew. apparently used clothing boutiques are all about snatching up designer labels.

now i will send my formal dresses to the Glass Slipper Project, and the rest of the clothing to the Brown Elephant, and score better karma than if I’d received $50 for all that junk anyway.

*admittedly, Crossroads went through my stuff and bought a few items first, so by the time I got to Buffalo Exchange anything young and hip had been picked over.

unearthed today:

{08 June 2009}

The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present. Health and hope grew strong in them, and they were content with each good day as it came, and in every word and song.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

If a man loves the labour of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

{31 May 2009}

the packing storm has begun. my apartment no longer looks like my home – i am greeted by empty bookshelves and bare walls when i come in the front door. i hate this part. nesting in my new home will be good, i look forward to that, but in the mean time there is this awkward month of transition. the bare bookshelves are my chicago roots being plucked out of the dirt, and it stings a little.

i am bad at goodbyes and flinch when well-meaning and much-beloved friends poke at the wound with kind gestures. i am unused to anyone makng a fuss over me, and going away parties and gifts and one-last-beers and goodbye dinners that no one will let me pay for make me feel loved and humbled. i cannot match the kindnesses shown me lately; i suppose all i can do, karmicly, is to pass it forward.

still: i made this choice. onward, upward.

Exit Chicago

{24 May 2009}

i’m endeavoring to leave the party at the right moment. you know when it’s suddenly 2am, and you’re still at the party, and now the train isn’t running so you’ll have to take the night bus and you’re a little drunk and tired and wish that you’d left an hour earlier and that you were just home already? i hate that feeling, so much so that i try to manage the preemptive party exit whenever possible. but the timing is tricky – leave too early and you miss out on all the fun. stay too late and you have to see the party end.

chicago’s like that. and now, well, right now i’m having the best possible time – music is rockin and all my friends are here and i’ve had just enough alcohol to be extra charming. i don’t want to leave, but it’s better to go now, on a high note, than wait till i’ve stayed too long. other people are leaving. lives are changing, moving ahead. people are going to grad school, or finishing grad school, having babies, getting married, moving away, taking new jobs. at the metaphorical party, other people are coordinating rides home. i didn’t want to be left behind, so it was time to figure out where i’m going next, too.

but that’s not to say that the party isn’t totally kicking ass just now. spring just returned to chicago after a long long long cold winter. leaves are on the trees, al fresco dining has returned, it’s all commuting to work by bike and cool nights drinking beer on the porch. but the goodbyes have begun. i’m making the rounds at the party, gathering my coat, kissing everyone on the cheek. i have mixed feelings of excitement and apprehension, but regardless, Project Exit Chicago is in full swing.

i’ll try to spare the slithy tove too many self-indulgent posts about to-do lists and the trauma of itemizing and packing my home and fights with the utility companies. we’ve all moved, it sucks. so Project Exit Chicago is more of a best-of chicago review: things that either i needed to do one more time, or stuff i’ve always meant to do and haven’t gotten around to it quite yet.

+ volunteer for a race
today my alarm went off at 4:15am. by the first light of dawn, i was on my bike and head down the lake front path to Soldier Field, where met my pal adan and we volunteered on the grounds crew for the Soldier Field 10 Mile race (checking off a 101 task in the process). i

+ watched the sun rise over lake Michigan as i biked in, a fiery red disk nestled in a bank of clouds over the horizon, the water glassy in the still air, shining white where the lightening sky passed over it, the reflection moving with me as i sped along the lake.

+ commute around chicago by bike on a beautiful sunny day
post-race, adam and i biked north past the aquarium, the water sparkling in the sunshine, white sailboats bobbing against the blue water. we went up michigan ave past the tourists and the new modern wing of the art institute, then crossed the loop and up past the chocolate factory in the west loop whose emissions give downtown that curiously wonderful cocoa smell on days when the wind blows just right. then we turned up milwaukee, rode past all the hipsters in their annoying wicker park en route to

+ Hot Doug’s to eat duck fat fries. they were good, i have to admit. two-hours of line good? not at all. but two hours of waiting in line while hanging out with my pal adam in order to sample a chicago institution was certainly a good way to spend my afternoon. then home to finish assembling my apple pie*, quick stop to feed a friend’s cat, and on to the

+ Keenans’ place for a memorial day BBQ**.

other Exit Chicago tasks completed in the past few weeks:

+ running a half marathon in under 1:50

+ passing my 4th kyu test in aikido

+ grabbing a (veggie) burger at the excellent heavy metal-themed Kuma’s Corner with my pal aaron, who was also working on his own Exit Chicago list. (i ordered a burger that came topped with, among other things, anger).

+ going away party for departing staff at work (i am one of five leaving this spring), held in the backyard of a board member’s beautiful historic hyde park home, exactly the gracious sort of lawn party one could imagine a hyde park home is good for: beautifully laid out gardens that flow into one another gracefully (no need to fence out the neighbors when the garden so nicely), big shady trees, cold white wine on the first hot day, sundresses and gifts of signed/framed posters of past shows and little plates of summer fruit and cheese.

+ the annual fundraising gala for the theatre company that gave me my first job in chicago, a chance to say thanks to then-artistic director: someone who took a HUGE chance on me, hired me over the phone for an entry-level production management position before i’d even arrived in chicago, mentored me into that role, and set me on the career path that, 6 years later, has become a viable, actual career that i think i just might be really good at. while at the gala i posed for a photo with three other stage managers at that company (past and present) and i realized that at one time or another, i had hired all of them. for just a moment, i preened like a mother hen.

+ dinner at Hama Matsu, my neighbornhoody Japanese/Korean place, with my friend Jacqueline

+ dinner at (the excellent vegetarian/vegan-friendly***) Chicago Diner with Becky, one of the very first friends i met when i moved to chicago six years ago.


*my pursuit of perfect pastry crust is going well, though i still haven’t finished tweaking the apple filling to be the way i wanted it. i was convinced that ginger (first candied, then fresh) was the secret, but i’ve decided tha it makes the filling sharp when i’d prefer it to be mellow.

**where said apple pie was baked and consumed, ala mode.

***this place changed my mind entirely about vegan baking and desserts.

moving anxiety dream #2

{13 May 2009}

i arrive with my moving truck in tow, only to find out that the apartment i rented is not the one i thought i had rented. instead it is in a complex of dumpy, two-story buildings on a bleak, treeless street. it looks more like a small midwestern town than northern california: broad paved avenues, run down drive-thru hamburger joints, hardware stores, everything is bright and sunny, eerily quiet and profoundly flat, the horizon disappearing into a hazy horizon line. the complex’s handyman hands me the keys and i am trying to figure out of it is too late for me to ask to switch to a second story apartment, i hate first floor apartments. the driver of my moving truck is napping in the unclipped lawn among the tulips.

{12 May 2009}

it’s still early spring in Wisconsin – the trees are a haze of green but still bare enough that you can see through them to the next ridge and beyond. ferns are just springing up, bright green pushing up between a carpet of grey-brown leaves, uncurling into the sunlight in the weeks before the white birch and maple trees unfurl their canopy of leaves and block the sun from the forest floor. at night i could hear owls calling to one another from opposite sides of the campsite, and when i woke in the morning it was to a cacophony of birdsong, tweets and warbles and three-note trills, bellied by harsh bass caw-caws from a crow.

this is the land that Korinji, the zen/martial arts foundation of which my aikido dojo is a part of, has purchased in order to found a rural zen monastery, meditation retreat and martial arts training center. it’s 17 acres of steeply sloping and wooded ravines in the center of Wisconsin. this past weekend a group of aikidoka and zen students spent the weekend breaking trails, clearing trees from the building site, clearing rocks and debris and tree stumps from what will be the parking lot, and laying out the building foundation. it was backbreaking manual labor, shovels and sledge hammers and chainsaws and machetes, blistered hands in work gloves, muddy boots over wet feet, always the threat of rain but sunlight peeking between passing thunderclouds. that the zendo will be built entirely by the members’ own hands, donated sweat and labor and talent and time, will make it something we all share a pride and sense of ownership in. when i come back to train here in the future, i’ll know: i built that trail. i surveyed the building’s foundation. i stacked fire wood and cleared rocks and brush. we built something with our own hands. in the cerebral world i live in, one in which writing is something i do not with a pen on paper, but with a keyboard and ones and zeros, where even the art i make is constructed mostly by email and spreadsheet and phone calls and meetings, this is something solid, that i can touch, that will last. it will shelter from deep snows in the winter and summer thunderstorms, it is concrete and lasting and real.

new home.

{09 May 2009}

as of june 20, give or take a couple of days, i live here. oh yeah, i’m moving to california. i haven’t officially blogged about the big move here yet, tho i’m pretty sure that most everyone who reads this already knows i’m going.

i was trying to figure out why i’ve been putting off blogging about something so obvious and significant, while making time to blog about the color of the lake on a morning’s run, or what color Ira Glass’s dreamy eyes were, or puns on swine flu. i think, in part, because i dislike it when i put up poorly-written “catch up on the last few weeks/months” posts, because i never really intended for slithy tove to be a news wire of my rather ordinary life (update! i had a cheese sandwich for lunch. update! it’s raining. *yawn*). i’ve been thinking lately about what on earth slithy tove IS for. it’s not the same thing that it was when i started, and i’ve thought about closing the doors a number of times, but i just don’t quite want to. i love writing to the ether. of course, when i write some part of me is aware of and governed by my actual readers, made up of a few friends and family, mostly, but there’s something lovely and poetic about writing to the universe, putting it out there for anyone or no one to read. my blog is a language sketchbook. a place for me play with words, and maybe, once in a while, the exercise of writing routinely leaves me with a turn of phrase here or there that i’m pleased with. in the mean time, i process, i learn from the act of writing and re-writing more about what’s in my head than i would if just scribbled it down in a private journal and filed it away. which is why i dislike half-assed posts that are just announcements of what i did yesterday, with no attention to language or shape or texture.

but, putting that aside for a moment: I AM MOVING TO CALIFORNIA. there, announcement made.

i think the other reason i’ve putting off blogging this post is because i don’t have a succinct way of writing about this change, because it’s not a simple decision and my feelings about it are all scattered about on the floor. professionally, i’m moving to take a job, it’s a good promotion with a good company, and i’m lucky to have it. i’m excited about finding work that challenges me again, work where i feel like my contribution truly determines the direction that the art takes. i was tired of feeling superfluous. and personally, i was feeling this profound sense of stasis. i love my life here. i love my friends, the arts community here, the sports i play, the way chicago blooms in may and comes to life in june, warm summer nights and sunrise over the lake. i love cheap falafel and cheering for the underdog cubbies as tho i actually care about pro sports and riding my bike to work and my aikido dojo and walking into a party and knowing that i’ll know half the people there because i am an integral part of this arts community. but my life today is pretty much the same as it was three years ago. i’m better at the jobs i’m doing, i’m making a little more money, but basically, nothing was changing. and around me, the lives of my friends are changing in big dramatic ways, and rather than feeling secure in my stability, i was feeling stifled by it. i can’t stop time, i can’t cling to the things and the people that i love, so i need to move forward, boldly, gracefully*, instead.

so here i go. off the cliff. i tippy-toed around and whined about it for a good long time, but i finally made the plunge (and signed the contract and the lease, just to make it stick). it’s time for the next chapter.

well, we strive for grace, anyway. it can be elusive.

moving anxiety dream #1

{03 May 2009}

last night i dreamed that i’d been hired to be the production manager at a well-known chicago theatre company. i hadn’t officially started the job yet, but i was in the theatre building for some reason. one of the production staff took me aside. “there’s something you need to see,” she told me, and handed me a worn leather-bound journal. the journal turned out to be the secret diaries of the previous production manager. he’d had to write all these missives in secret, hidden in the closet or the basement or whatever, and they were all about how the theatre in question was a terrible place to work. after reading them i knew i had to get out, but how? i was trapped. it was all very harry potter.

it’s nice when at least my dreams are transparent.