Christine 1, Marriage 0

Recently I received a request on Facebook from a girl I knew in high school. We were never truly close and I didn't want to come off as being rude or snarky so I accepted the digital friendship token that was laid in my inbox. Shortly after I clicked "add to friends" she im'ed me. Aside from the "hey how are you" banter (actually it was "hey how r u"), she asked, "r u married yet?" Apparently she is married, with 4 children. I told her I am enjoying the single life in the big city.

Normally, I would have been irritated by such a question; the idea that my life is incomplete because I do not have anyone to share it with,or don't cart around children is enough to drive any singleton mad. I love children--someday I will cart around a slew of them--well, maybe not a slew, but you get the idea. I just never wanted to just have that be the only thing to aspire to do. Do I want to get married? For sure. Would I rather graduate college, go teach English in a foreign country, go to NYC for my MFA, and then figure the rest of that bullshit out? In the words of the lesser Palin, "You betcha!"

I recall having many pep-talks from my best friend (who graduated college, is currently in Korea teaching English, and has lived in NYC) that a woman doesn't necessarily HAVE to go into being brood mare for the state--she has many options based upon what SHE wants to do; meanwhile I felt like a loser because I wasn't married or in the vicinity of that sort of life. Now, being 29, I am a bit older and wiser. She knew something that I couldn't quite grasp (she did graduate before me, mind you). I write my own destiny. I may bloom early in some things, but late in others. And who the fuck cares? I love my life and I wouldn't change it for the world. Everything I've gone through has been done so for a specific reason. If I weren't in school at Roosevelt University in Chicago, I would have never met the most amazing people I have, I would not be taught by such a faculty and I wouldn't be the person I am today. And I rather like myself, married or no. I am not a failure.

Elbert Hubbard once said, "A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience." In these terms, I am as rich as The Trump sans the buildings, golf courses, tv shows, ex wives and raccoons on my head. Who needs that anyway? Not I.

So while my "new" friend from high school may love her life--and I'm sure she does, it doesn't mean that I should feel disgusted with my own. We simply have different priorities at this moment. She may be up late with her three year old, where I may be woken up by my visiting cousin, having a disagreement with her soon to be ex-boyfriend. My vision for my life is no more skewed than hers. Then again, she said she missed Florida--and that is one thing we'll never see eye to eye on.

Summer in the City Part II: Electric Boogaloo

So the last time I wrote, I was on the quest for my 2009 summertime jam.

My quest was fruitful, as I have found BOTH my songs--the daytime upbeat song and the nighttime song...

First, the day: Gold Guns Girls by Metric




And then came Smashing Pumpkins' The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning. You'll remember the lyrics if you are a Pumpkin head and remember that AWFUL Batman movie with George Clooney but it was called The End Is The Beginning Is The End. It's just been remixed and someone made a video of an eye that gets covered up by...well...I'll just let you take a gander, if not a listen.




So there it is folks. My summer songs of 2009. Lick it up baby, lick it up!

Summer in the City

Going through summer without having a "summertime jam" is like going to the prom without a theme...in a dress that you hate...with your cousin. So while I have been hitting the streets, trying to do all the free stuff I can in Chicago, I have been thinking about my own personal "summertime jam."

What exactly is the criteria for such a jam? Does it have to be upbeat? Does it have to sway you? Must it have the word "summer" in it? All good questions. I asked my music snob friend, Smith, and she said "Electric Field by MGMT, but that was last year's summer jam." Then I explained my question a bit further and she agreed that it should be something that is upbeat for it to be a true summer song. And I'm willing to go along with that. I remember when Taking Back Sunday's "Make Damn Sure" was the summer song---and it truly was. But what about at night? Should there be a different summer time song for night than there should be in the day? Something more "twilight-ish?" And by "twilight-ish" I am not referring to something that is vampiric--calm down you blood-sucking crazed teenys---this isn't about Edward or Jacob. Bands like Death Cab and Fleet Foxes, that to me is "twilight" music...the kinda of tunes you can lay in bed with your lover, holding hands on a sheetless matress and sigh in the twilight of the evening.

There are many songs that have to do with summer: "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, "Summertime" by Will Smith (ala DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince), The Ramone's cover of "California Sun"...and then there are those that just remind you of the summertime because you spent your day (or night for that matter) cruising around in your mother's Camry, listening to The Violent Femmes or Offspring, 311 or Smashing Pumpkins. Or maybe you spent it watching MTV when they used to play music videos--when Bill Bellamy was still hosting MTV JAMS and you weren't sure if you liked Kennedy yet. How simple times were then...before you had to choose your own path to a summertime jam.

As I got older, punk/ska music became more of a substitute for my summertime jams. It was fast paced, rather intelligent and insightful (depending on the band) and it just seemed to make sense at the time. Summer was for punk, acoustic for Fall, Harder stuff for Winter, Warmer music for Spring...the cycle continued. Until one day, you have to stop it and come into your own. You get to decide what your song will be--it can follow the events of the time, be it historical or personal. Something tells me that many will be putting Michael Jackson as their summertime jam for 2009. You already know how I feel about that, so we'll move on.

In the end, I suppose I will have to keep searching for this thing, known as the "summertime jam." I may find the even more elusive creature--the summertime romance, first.

on the recent death of Michael Jackson

So the wheels have been turning since Thursday, when Farrah Fawcett died and then of course, some guy named Michael Jackson. I was sitting on the bus, coming home from my mother's house in the suburbs when my mother called saying that MJ is either dead or on his death bed. With Farrah, it was expected--with Michael, it wasn't. I talked to the bus driver before I got off at Hazel and we were both shocked to hear that he had died. Text messaging ensued. First with Yvvone, then phone calls from Shelley. Wow. MJ is gone.

True to form, Americans have made MJ a top seller on iTunes, sharing the spotlight only with that of The Black Eyed Peas. To those people, I say this: Put down the music, walk away. You didn't realize what you had until it was gone. Fuck off. Unless you're doing it to help pay off Jackson's 457 million dollars in debt, then fine. But you're holding onto something that you gave up on many years ago. As soon as Jacko starting showing issues of being "weird" or "unorthodox" you bolted. Fuck off. You didn't deserve him.

This is not to say that I was a die hard fan. I liked some tunes--I won't lie. And when MJ came over the speakers, I would certainly head out to the dance floor. I had a Michael Jackson doll when I was a little girl and the making of the Thriller video casette (directed by John Landis, no doubt). And while I am sad for the music communities loss, and my heart goes out to his family and his children, you will not find me taking quizzes on facebook about "Which Michael Jackson song are you?" or running out to buy his CDs. I am old enough to remember what it was like when Kurt Cobain died. How every music special on MTV was about Nirvana and we were so inundated with reports, music videos, MTV News, Unplugged...and my sister and I ate it up. We were holding onto someone because the loss was sudden--but it made it seem like he wasn't really dead, because he was everywhere. Finally, four months after that April...while watching "Heart Shaped Box" on MTV, it finally sunk in. Kurt was dead. And this is all I have left.

I still listen to Nirvana occasionally and when I do, a feeling flows through my veins of being young, confused, and utterly spent at trying to figure this world out. Those memories of my youth. I wouldn't change them for the world. And I suppose that is what the rest of these people are doing--holding on to something they were once, before they had to grow up and get responsible. Before they were to lose themselves in taxes, elections, world relations and complicated marriages/divorces. Before kids, before government bailouts, before George W. Bush.
Something from your childhood is dead, I get that. But that is no way to move forward.

I wonder what this world would be like if we mourned every soldier who has died in Iraq/Afghanistan the way we've mourned Michael Jackson. Just sayin'.

Tweet Tweet Tweetle Dee Dee

I'm on twitter now...though I'm not exactly sure as to why...more on that later.

Candide? Can-do-it already.

After a grueling second semester at Chicago's Roosevelt University, I was ready to enjoy a laundry list of books I had been compiling since I had started my Junior year. Although I had read a number of books over Christmas break (gasp! I mean Winter Break!), I knew which ones I was ready to tackle and which ones I would wait until next winter to read.

First on my list was Scott Blackwood's We Agreed to Meet Just Here. Blackwood heads up the MFA program at Roosevelt and I've met him a few times. I liked his book--though I can't really tell you why, nor can I really tell you what it is about. It mixes some actual events with Jonestown with mythology and stream of consciousness in an interesting way. I will definitely have to read it once more before school starts again.

Next on the list was Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. Bottom line--really drawn out sentences, great imagery, all within the classification of modern writing. I do prefer Woolf's criticism--probably because she makes reference of James Joyce and let's face it--anytime Joyce is mentioned, I have to swoon. And yet, swooning at Woolf's affection of Joyce's work is rather odd in itself.

Then my mother swooped down and said, "Why don't you read Candide?" I looked at her with disapproving eyes. I've just finished reading T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland...and you want me to take a step backward and read Voltaire? "I can-did already," I said, quite sarcastically. And when I couldn't tell her anything I had read about it except for that it was anti-Christian, she gave me her copy and sent me on my way.
When I cracked Candide, I found it to be a very quick and easy read and basically anyone who pissed Voltaire off in his life, be it personal or professional, got a shout out in the book---and not a very positive one at that. So basically, if you pissed Mr. Voltaire off, you got killed or portrayed very stupidly in his work. Which leaves me to only one conclusion, Voltaire was a bitch. And our hero, Candide? What an idiot he turned out to be.
When I finished the story, I went back to my mother to talk about it--her plan all along, really. She does this with her own mother; my mom will watch a third rate soap opera (I won't mention the name but it rhymes with One Life To Live) just so she can have something to talk to my grandmother about. God knows they can't talk about politics because we voted for Obama and not Sarah Palin.** So it this what has become of our relationship? She wanted to talk--or she just wanted someone to converse with on Candide?
I called her on the phone. "Hey Mom," I started," I finished Candide."
"Oh, and what did you think?" she asked. "Eh--Candide was a dope." She laughed. Then I asked her some questions about some of the locations of the story--to which she replied, "Oh I don't know Chris, it's been about twelve years since I've read it." My mouth dropped.
"I thought you wanted me to read it to talk about it?" I asked. "Well, yes," she said, "but didn't you like how they made fun of the Catholic church?" There goes her chance at being canonized.

I since have moved onto Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which I am quite enjoying but also nearly finished. I'll give a proper (proper? really?) review of it later. Perhaps around the time I figure out what I'll be reading next.

**I realize that Sarah Palin was the VP candidate, not the Presidential one. But my Grandmother didn't like McCain--she loved Palin. Hence the Obama V. Palin comment. Oh, by the way, in case you didn't already guess, Obama would still win against Palin.

Envy Becomes Her

What exactly is it about women that we feel that we can never truly be happy for other women? Oh don't look at me like that. You know exactly of what I speak. It is like we're born with some naturally arched eyebrow and when we reach a certain age, we spritz ourselves with eau de jalousie, then hit the town in our stilettos and black dress--prowling for men and ready to claw out the eyes of some other bitch who steals our spotlight. Too much? Hrm. Where did I place those Lee Press-ons?

A friend, Cyndi, brought this to my attention. She got a call from an old friend of hers and this friend is getting married. An over joyous event, for certain. But she couldn't help but feel that little green monster creep up inside of her and take control. "When I got off the phone with her, I immediately started doing sit-ups" she told me over coffee at Kahawa House last Thursday. Sure, Cyndi is 35 and single--and up until then she was loving every minute of it. So what changed? One more single man off the market? Or one more single girl converting to the coveted "couplehood."

I remember watching a few Sex In The City episodes about this topic of the Singletons v. the Marrieds and with Carrie and the girls--the Singletons won out in the end. The Marrieds were envious of their former lives and of the hot and raunchy sex they assumed the Singletons were having. Apparently they forgot all about the lonely nights waiting for your buzzer to ring to signal that the Chinese delivery boy is ready with your Asian delicacies--and that you ate it all in one sitting, watching reruns of Boston Legal, wondering why you can't find your own personal Alan Shore--and then you remember that Alan is a dick and you know plenty of those. Or maybe that is just me.

The fact is that women are very catty. We want others to be jealous of us, so we have to play into the game. It's somewhat like the lottery--a very insecure lottery. And you don't even need breasts and a vagina to play--some of the men I know are some of the most manipulative and envious people out there. I'm not saying that it is wrong--and I'm not saying it is right for that matter. It is human. We want the best things for ourselves and fuck everyone else. It's the American Dream.

"So what should I do," Cyndi asks me. I sit up a bit stronger in my chair--"You go to the wedding. You let her have her day--and someday, it will be yours. And if this gives you more motivation to change the things about you that you've been wanting to deal with, then fine. But at the end of it all, she will still be married. That won't change reality." It's shiesty advice--for sure. Eau de Jalousie is an airy fragrance but it should never be traded in for it's stronger smelling stench of Hatred, Cockblocker or Regret.