Stick with Her

A few months ago my mom dived into a new hobby, and I blogged about it here. 

When I visited this past Thursday for an overnight 'vacation,' mainly to give my cat some time to himself and to take a break from everything, I found myself not enmeshed in an oasis of quiet and calm but instead witnessing a kitchen-table-turned-drafting-area, with my mom at its helm, working against a deadline for an upcoming craft fair.

 

"You read. Would you pay $2 for a bookmark? " my mom asked.  

"I don't use bookmarks," I replied. 

"What do you do?" she wondered, as if she hasn't noticed me dog-earing book pages for the past 30 years. 

"Dog-earing, that's not good for the book. You need to use a bookmark," she decided, finding the turned over corner of the page of the book I was reading, and inserting a bright orange bookmark, adding, as afterthought, "You don't need your name written on it, like the one I made for Gabby, do you?" 

"Uh no, it's okay," I said. 

I also made out with a checkbook cover, and matching coin purse, both of which I'm excited to use. 

Stick with Me started when a consignment shop sold two of its checkbook covers, at $8 each, which was enough of a sign to forge ahead.  A cousin who makes jewelry offered to set aside some space in her craft fair booth for SWM, and yesterday The Pipeline e-newsletter agreed to make an exception for Stick with Me-- technically located outside of the neighborhood- and add it to the Angel Club listings. 

strangers on a parade float

i know a few people who get ballsy enough to be in stranger's faces. in general i prefer consent in all things photographic. 

parades, however, are fair game!

this photo, which i just found while deleting a bunch of old images, was from the Pride parade a few years back.  it's the CNA insurance company float. i can't think about CNA or look at its tall red building, so prominent against the city skyline, without thinking about the woman who was killed when a glass window blew off of one of the building's top floors. 

i just read that in the settlement the family received $18 million.  though there's been plenty of reports on what happens to lottery winners after the fact, i wonder what happens after families receive such large settlements. time is known to "heal all wounds" when it comes to losses of all kinds, but where does money fit into this equation.  is it like a salve? is there a lot of guilt tied to it? how is it spent? to a giant corporation like CNA, $18 million is a drop in the bucket, but to a single family who received the sum as a result of a tragic loss, what does it mean? 

a poem to you

a poem to you/who

i do not know,

on a day that should not/does 

affect me like it does,

the hearts, the rainbows, the pink 

i'm all about that, babe. 

i tried to do things/did

do things that i'd like to do/often 

like mop the floors, open the mail, 

i did it all for me,

'twas no one rooting me on

except a voice called pride.

at the end of the day 

a call came in from a friend. 

there was hope when i clicked 'play,'

he was wondering 

if i could help him

rewrite his resume.  

the cliche that is a weird cab ride

weird cab rides are very cliche, thus for you to write about a cab ride it must have been breathtakingly weird. 

forget the stale nachos, the horribly bad movie not deserving of a big theater screen or of the attention of the idiot that shelled out $11 to escape the world for two hours. pretend there wasn't a guy that somehow helped you end up in that place tonight, but then he was gone and you were  left thinking of what a bad actress kerri russell is and wondering if the other two people in the theater at 11 p.m. were homeless and if they'd stab you or not. 

bypass all that and head straight into a minivan cab that reeks of marijuana, and a driver who tells you it's okay, there's less cars at night. during the day, maybe not a good idea, but night is good he reassures you as you glide through the city streets. 

reflexes, you say. you are sure that it is affecting his reflexes.  your dad, you say. when someone dies behind the wheel it makes you think of anything on wheels being a perfectly good way to die. why does that always seem to get the message through? what is it about saying that death has touched you which touches others?

 dying might be the strongest wake-up call out there.  isn't it ironic? 

  

A Full Moon

Anything can happen when there's a full moon as was the case yesterday. 

The moon is visible in the far left corner of this image snapped while on a very long yet very head clearing walk.

How is the 'walking man' inside the stoplight at Clyborn & Magnolia so much bigger than our moon? 

My cell phone died, and the charger is missing.  The person who has keys to the lost & found box at the theater I was at for a student rehearsal won't be back until tomorrow, and while there's a 50/50 chance my charger might be in the box, I'm willing to wait another day, phone-less, and unconnected rather than buy a new charger. 

I wish I weren't so absent-minded. I need a holster on me at all times, with everything I need in that holster, and some sort of electroshock to my body in the event the holster gets removed. In addition to the holster,  a land-yard to hang from my neck with my house and car keys on it might be a good idea, and maybe my name too in case I forget that lest the alter-egos get out of control. Passwords for various Internet sites should also be incorporated into this new and better organized version of myself.  

After I fix myself I can start working on the home and become a shopper at The Container Store off North Ave. instead of just wandering around in it like I usually do before hitting up its bathroom which is one of the nicer bathrooms around. 

A favorite poem comes to mind. 

The Facebook Filter

What I wanted to say: 

"There seems to be this trend with people I met when I was 20 turning 40 lately. Nevertheless, it's exciting in a sad way! Just kidding, Happy Birthday!"

What I did say: 

Happy Birthday! 

a fun week

i had more fun than usual with this week's Pipeline

....am all out of words though. whew. awoke at 5:30 AM to write the WHACK review and Plan B stories *before* the 8:30 AM state of the wards. 

came home and due to the fact that proofer had been logged into the same document and i hadn't logged out, ALL was lost, so i had to rewrite both from memory, and the plan b story turned out different, and then i also wrote about the state of the wards. 

one word: DRINK. 

if i can only stay awake until 8:30 when i need to leave my apartment to go drink that is. 

i love tuesday nights. 

oh yeah, and i ran into someone at the address that i used to sell advertising to two jobs ago. anywhere in chicago i am guaranteed to run into someone i used to sell advertising to, this is a fact. though i will SEND IMAGINARY DAGGERS of rhinestone-studded 'STFU' into the forehead of the next person who asks me what in the world i've been up to since being laid off, which cliff i've dropped off from, etc. 

A LOT.  i've been up to a lot. 

Stupid Rules

Just as there are no stupid questions, I believe there are no stupid rules.

Building on this, someone told me for the second time that I have "a lot of stupid rules."

Sometimes we can't explain why we have our rules, or personal codes of conduct, written, or implicit, but each of us has rules, whether for our personal or business lives, and part of being true to ourselves and consequently true to others is being faithful to this inner code.

While a request could be considered minor in the eyes of the requester, perhaps something like asking me to personally encourage my Facebook "friends" to "fan" a business, I cannot in good conscience mix these two worlds, i.e the world of local e-newsletter writing and the world of a couple hundred or so random folks, a virtual water cooler of sorts that includes everything from blood relatives to college friends scattered across the country to long ago bosses and friends of RealSpace friends and current girlfriends of ex-boyfriends and former coworkers and everything in between.

Though maybe a couple dozen or so from my extended Facebook circle live in the neighborhood and are readers of the weekly Pipeline, the majority of the people I am connected with on the sometimes awesome and other times addictive FaceCrack don't live here, and the ones that do are already exposed to an exhaustive amount of neighborhood information compiled in a one time weekly format.

To cross a line, to start encouraging others I know to fan other people's businesses, is not aligned with my inner code. The free weekly tarot page at a local caffe only has 65 or so fans, and I've never asked anyone from my personal network to "fan" the page of the caffe which I work at, and while perhaps I could do that it just didn't feel right nor does honoring this request.

Even if I risk losing the potential sponsorship of the requester, I'd rather risk that small loss than weather the gradual erosion my personal code of conduct which remains firm despite the uncertainty I experience on a routine basis.

Though debates wage in every traditional newsroom as to how stories can continue to be told, and journalistic integrity can stay intact despite a scary future, one such way to do that is to be true to the stories that you write, and not bow to requests that might compromise your inner voice, both in your business and personal spheres... If the worlds tend to naturally intermix, as is the case for someone like me who writes based on my experiences and through the eyes of hyper-local writer writing about all local happenings, it is even more important that the inner code holds firm.

To me, the rules are smart, but in the eyes of some they might be stupid. I guess I'll just have to deal with that, and keep on moving in the only way that I know how to move, or want to move. Part of growing up is maybe finally accepting the fact that not everyone will agree with me or like me, and that energy spent on explaining myself or my perceived-as-stupid rules could be better spent on applying my time to the production of the next issue, speaking of which I need to start doing that...

Sympathy Munchkins

I took the train downtown to get my camera repaired. 

L., the Dunkin Donuts man, was at his post behind the bullet-proof glass.  Every morning as I commuted to work I'd order the same thing at the same time, and L. would call me his "best friend," something I thought made me special until I realized that he calls all his regulars his best friend. 

The last time L. and I spoke was back in March when two months after losing my job I took the train to the airport to visit a friend. He'd told me that he thought maybe I'd met a man and moved away, which made me laugh at the hilarity of it as well as from his sweet concern over my abrupt disappearance from the commuter sphere. I'd ordered a bagel and he snuck six sympathy munchkins into the bag which I was unaware of until I was on the train. 

This time- our second reunion in the past year- L. was very curious as to how I am getting by and what I've been doing.  He told me that he used to have about 250 regulars and now there's 170, which given the economy sounds about right.

I assured L. that I am fine, and happy, and I'm working on "a lot of projects," projects being my euphemism for all that I can't sum up in a quick conversation. He didn't seem convinced, and told me that he hopes I'll find a job soon. I tried to explain that I started my own business. I gave him a copy of The Pipeline, which was my only copy with the toner streaked, the color busted out, and the formatting weird. The whole thing kind of looked sad, and I could see how he could see that because I saw it too. 

Then I pulled my broken camera out of my purse and showed him the missing button. I explained that I was on my way to get the camera fixed. 

He shook his head and said that was too bad. 

Then he told me to pick any donut, any donut I want. 

"I don't need a donut," I said, "Just the bagel." 

"Pick a donut!" he said again.

"Just a single chocolate munchkin," I replied. 

"No, not one, I'll give you two." 

"Okay, fine," I said. "Thank you, that's really nice of you." 

I got on the platform, and it turned out he'd thrown in six, along with the bagel that I'd paid for. I realized how hungry I was from not eating all day, and I ate all six chocolate munchkins, standing in the cold and waiting for the train.  I didn't save any room for the bagel.  I didn't care. 

The Thing About Happiness

Naturally I can't find the article to reference/link it, but either in this past Sunday's NYT or the Chicago Tribune there was a story about happiness.

The story began by comparing two people-- a wealthy 30-something single male with a lot of wealth and his own swimming pool, and a 60-something married, overweight African American woman with lots of health problems.

Based on a brain scan-- I think, if I remember correctly-- the woman was happier than the man, because she has a circle of family and friends, and experiences happiness through emotional rewards gained by volunteering at her church. 

Like bees, humans gravitate toward each other, and want to work together, with altruism as a motivating factor, being cognizant on some level that the love we receive is equal to the love we give. As much as we'd like to be independent, or think of ourselves as these unique independent beings, there's a lot of loneliness and consequent unhappiness inherent in having only our own voice in the room, or our own successes to celebrate. 

In the name of independence, and in striving so hard each week to figure out how I'm going to make a living and continue producing the weekly Pipeline and blah, blah, blah I'm broke like the rest of the world, I've flown a bit off course, away from any semblance of a beehive.  I've put stupid things ahead of important things, and I've let details slide in an effort to cover as much stuff as possible. And all this while doing something I love, but from which I have no clue how it can be sustainable. 

Next week I'll try to get back on course.  As for right now, my hair is just about dry at last, and I need to get to a camera repair shop. Perhaps there's a joke somewhere in the fact that the very last picture I took on my camera was of the exterior of a Subway before the shutter button disappeared.  Maybe the cold weather caused it to freeze off? In any case, it's AWOL and I'm bummed.  I don't believe in praying to any higher power over selfish stuff regarding money, but I really cannot afford a massive repair or a new camera at the present time.  By sticking a bent paper clip in the hole I can depress the button, and it sort of works but it's awkward. 

Many years ago a man that I met, a writer, laughed a bit when I had temporarily misplaced my steno notebook containing a week or two worth of notes. "Losing a notebook is like losing your life," he had said.   

At the moment I feel that way about my camera.  Though I hope to get it fixed soon. In the meantime I'll try to keep what I read about happiness closer to the front of my mind. 

  

Bad dates=good stories

I don't usually enter writing competitions, mainly because I don't think anything I write is good enough,  plus even if it were I suffer from A.D.D. at open mic gatherings, preferring to read other people's stories on my own terms, alone, and while in slipper socks. 

Yet, with Valentine's Day approaching, and the fact I have one V-Day advertiser confirmed for The Pipeline, and figure I'll have to politely acknowledge the existence of the holiday given the majority of readers might celebrate it, I was intrigued by experiencing the holiday in a different way, perhaps at an Anti-Valentine's Day story gathering taking place outside of the neighborhood. 

Perhaps V-Day 2010 will be better than the evening of Feb. 14th 2009 when I was at the emergency vet clinic with my cat hooked up to a catheter, or the Feb. 14th before that when a man who at the time I didn't know was Eurotrash and who criticized everything I wore down to my socks, wooed me with a carnivalesque dog he picked up at Walgreen's and hung from the exhaust pipe of my apartment using wire which I finally cut, long after the wiener dog had been stuffed into a dumpster in the dark of night.

Maybe even on some level listening to the bad date stories of others will be better than a Feb. 14th before the turn of this century when my ex was cooking a romantic dinner and I arrived 45-minutes late to said dinner because the 

"Choose Your Own Adventure" style V-day card I was writing featuring references to our lives kind of like in those personalized books for kids that used to be all the rage at shopping mall kiosks in the 80s had turned into a 40-page story with graphics. I'd experienced great difficulty printing off the card-turned-story in its entirety, all the while apologizing profusely for my lateness through phone calls and trying to put on make-up. He never read the story, and I married him. 

Though there's three or four other 500-word-or-less bad date stories I can write up to submit for consideration, with one about accepting an invitation to be a date to a then older man's 10-year high school reunion because I was kind of in a weak moment-- we used to sell our plasma on the same schedule and he was laying on the naugahyde chair alongside mine when he inquired as to my Saturday night availability--  I decided to stop at just one story.  The following bad date yarn was originally 1,600 words and I just condensed it to 491. 

A Very Candid Evening

by Aly Hensler

At ten after eight, I call D.  His voicemail says, "Do not leave me a message. I won't listen to it. Send an email instead."


I wonder if there’s another entrance. There is, and D. is climbing the fire escape.

The bemused hostess leads us to a table in the back of the restaurant, which used to be a railroad car. In the narrow aisle I walk gingerly behind D., watching his large backpack to ensure it won’t knock any glasses over.


"So," D. says, before removing his coat.  "Did you check out my company’s web site?” 


I reply that I did. Ten minutes later D. is still talking. I blurt, perhaps too forcefully, "Do you want to check out the menu?" 



Cue received,  D. thanks me, and says he “likes people that speak their minds.”  
He tells me that he is in daily psychoanalysis.

"You mean you see a therapist every day?" I ask.  

"Yes," he replies. "You knew this from my profile. There is a pause. He adds, "I mentioned it in my profile."





His profile had said something about being an "analysand," though I’d assumed it meant a student of psychoanalysis, not a daily patient of it.

He studies the menu, and declares, "I'm not hungry.”

Over a cup of soup I learn there are three women in D’s life, yet he does not enjoy a sexual relationship with any of them. 

He proffers that the woman with whom he shares the strongest emotional connection with is extremely jealous that he is on a date tonight. 
He looks at me defiantly.

"It’s OK, “I assure him. “I don't think she has anything to be jealous of.”

He asks me why I feel like there’s nothing for his female friend to be jealous of.  "Be totally honest," he requests.

I tell him I don’t feel much chemistry.


"You’re holding back," he insists. "What else?”

“Your voicemail," I admit. “It's not friendly.”

“Okay,” he says. “What else?

”

"This is weird. Why are you asking me to critique you?" I wonder.


"I want you to," he says. "Plus, I promise to tell you why I don’t feel much chemistry toward you."




"Cool," I say. "Your backpack, it’s huge."



We both look at his backpack, which occupies the seat next to D. Had the backpack of been a toddler it would be about three-years-old based on its weight, and height.  

I then ask what it is about me that made him determine there’s no chemistry.

"When I saw you, I thought, ’She’s too normal,” he admits.  
"Your coat, your hat, your purse, the way you carry yourself, it’s all so normal. I don't usually get along with normal people.”

He walks me to my car, and I drive away thinking about normality. Though in most cases it’s overrated, quite candidly, and coming from D. I decide to take it as a compliment.