I knew him not very well, Horatio

This blog has moved. You can find me here!

Welcome to the Blog of Illegitimacy

I generally feel like an impostor everywhere. I can't even answer simple questions about my personal life ("What have you been up to?") without feeling like I'm giving the wrong answer.

That said, I will need your help procuring the following things, which I will explain later:

1. Subscription to Cat Fancy 
2. Boxed set of Frasier
3. Soup (to eat)
4. Thighmaster
5.Your iPhone (to play game for a minute)
6. Small baby (will give back)
7. Sweater with detachable breastfeeding flap (for "baby")
8. Something to prop up wobbly table
9. Smoking jacket
10. Button that says, "No women allowed!" to put on smoking jacket
11. List of out-of-date slang
12 Just a bite of that cake
13. Troll doll wearing bikini
14. Earmuffs made out of street rats
15. Money

Thanks for your support!

Lay Off Me, I'm Stalking

I like how the stenciling on the white vans operated by the Chicago Department of Revenue have the u in Revenue obscured by a bulbous black lens so it looks like it says, "Department of Revenge."

Don't Forget to Give Me Back My Black T-Shirt

Me: I only have $30 in my bank account.*
Mysterious woman on porch asking for money: $25...I can be helped with $25.

*I may have more than $30 in my bank account.

Only six out of 6.5 billion people saw you do that?

Lately I've been imagining myself and all other people as Lilliputian-sized creatures ever preened and pressed and hustling about with tiny vanilla lattes and amazingly detailed model-toy outfits.

It's a comforting thought, particularly when one is otherwise distracted by such eye-rolling defeats as, "This neck pimple makes it look like I was bitten by a sabertoothed vampire," and "I should really stop getting Prince Valiant haircuts."

 

Plus, viewing everything as tiny and meaningless can turn you into a nihilist, which is very sexy and decadent!

It's Not a Tumor!

Guy at Work #1: Do you think Arnold will go back into acting?
Guy at Work #2: I hope so, because maybe then they'll make Jingle All the Way 2.

A Series of Embarassing Incidents

In 2009 when I ran the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 10k in Detroit with two of my close friends from college, I was in a weird place — the year had brought significant job and relationship loss, a shifting set of life goals, and the fathomless end to a harrowing freelance project that left me with temporarily deteriorated social skills. I met Senny and Nicole and Nicole's dad in the early, chilled morning downtown, wearing nothing but shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, a thin hoodie tied around my waist. Though they upbraided me lightheartedly for being scarcely dressed, though my rule of thumb during cold-weather running (no wind) is generally: Over 45 degrees = shorts. I get hot very, very quickly.

For the first few miles, Senny and Nicole and I ran together. The route seemed clearly marked, and we relaxed, conversing rather than running competitively. At some point I spotted a girl wearing a shirt for the cross-country team I ran with in high school, and I ran ahead to say hello to her, tell her I used to be on the team, ask her if the same coach was coaching. We had a pleasant conversation, and then I continued on, looking behind to notice I could no longer see Senny or Nicole.

I guess I'll do the last few miles without them, I thought. No problem!

It didn't take much time for me to get to a point where the path split, and a man in an orange vest waved, "This way, 10K; that way, 5K!"

"10K this way?" I breathed hard, motioning to the left path.

He nodded, and his hand followed my motion. "10K that way," he yelled.


I cheerfully continued my run, developing that sliver of a notion one has during a race that you are suddenly ahead of most people. This didn't seem probable. I was running too casually in the beginning, and we started the race at the back of the crowd. Yet I pushed these concerns aside, rationalizing that I still had a few miles to go, and there were simply that many more 5K runners than 10K runners, hence the thinning field after the split.

Rounding a curve on Jefferson Avenue, I passed a spectator who began clapping energetically upon my presence.

"You go, girl!" She yelled.

"Thanks," I breathed. This has happened before, I thought. This could still be normal. Except that there were all these men suddenly running very quickly past me. Sprinting. Men sprinting. Sprints happen at the end of a race, and these were very fast men with bulging calves.

I quickened my pace, and entered a tunnel — but not before two or three other spectators screamed at me excitedly: "First woman! First woman!"

In the tunnel, I passed a sign that said Mile 6.


I had not been running long enough for a sign to say "Mile 6." Four miles, maybe. Not six. I resolved however that I was in a dark tunnel, and there was no where else to go but out.

Oh, out. Out was the finish line. I sprinted; I busted past that electronic mat; I heard people screaming: Girl! Girl! Woah, you rock! Oh god.

"Congratulations!" Someone handed me a card. "Make sure you come to the award ceremony!"

Mortified, I took the card and untied the thin sweatshirt wrapped around my waist. It's black, and zips, and—most importantly–has a hood. People were looking at me. That's the girl that just busted through with that time, they were thinking. Or, perhaps: Who does she think she is? Filthy liar!

I zipped up the sweatshirt to hide my runner's bib and pulled the hood as far over my forehead as I could manage, scrambling to the edge of the Detroit River to stretch. Somehow, I cut two miles out of the race unintentionally and "won" it—top female overall—a preposterous, Olympic time. I need to fix this.

"Are you at least going to claim your prize?" Nicole asks, after we find each other an hour later. Having been lost in the convention center, I thank her for not calling my name over the loudspeaker.

I clear my name on the phone later, desperate to crown the real female winner, explaining that I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere in the race. In doing so, I discover I was listed as having run several 5-minute miles. Well, if only.

The First Two Hours of Every Freelance Project

1. Arrange necessary materials in accessible spread around computer.
2. Review e-mail from project coordinator.
3. While you're at it, read other e-mails.
4. Reopen e-mail from project coordinator in new window.
5. Open editing program.
6. Check Facebook.

Waking Life

I just came across a note I wrote several months ago. It says: The Oxford English Dictionary's French-Canadian Guide to American Line Dancing, and it is a book I saw someone reading in a dream. I will search for it the rest of my life.

Favorite Sentences in the English Language Comprising of Only Four Words

Pizza by the Slice

Hot-N-Ready Pizza

Delicious Unlimited Pizza Buffet

Pizza for Emily's Consumption

Did Someone Say Pizza?

I'll Buy Your Pizza

I Owe You Anyway!

Yeah! Remember Last Time

Haha, That Was Funny

What's that Guy Wearing?

Don't Look at Him!

OK, Wait — Look Now

Still Haven't Read That Book

Where do English majors go to die?

A) Starbucks
B) Law school
C) That street corner, with a blood alcohol content of 4.0.

hot chick +carving watermelon

I have a job right now that consists in part of creating minus terms for the things people search for on the Internet, generally keywords that fall under innocuous consumer categories such as "birthday cake." You have no idea how many times I have to minus the word "sexing" from these results. Blue-tongued skinks, dog trainers, strawberry rhubarb pie, lawnmowers — apparently everyone wants to see these objects having a really good time.

Sucker Punch!

Man: Hey, can you tell me, if I want to catch the train to O'Hare, am I going in the right direction?
[Points in the very wrong direction.]
Me: Oh. Oh, no! Um ... well, you can go to the Logan Square stop, it's ...
Man: ...
Me: So, go this way. [Points in direction of stop.] So you just walk for a few blocks until you see the theater on your left, and then you'll see across the street, well, sort of across the street ...
Man: OK, OK, so ...
Me: [Pauses.] Why don't I just walk with you for a little bit.
Man: Would you? [We start walking.] You are so nice!
Me: It's not a big deal; I'm just turned around. Where are you from?
Man: Me, oh, I'm from Vegas!
Me: Cool. How long have you been here for?
Man: About three weeks. And seriously, this is so nice ...
Me: No, really, it's not a big deal. I just moved to this side of the city, so I know what it's like to feel lost.
Man: [Enthusiastic] Oh really? Where were you before?
Me: I lived on the North side, pretty far in Chicago standards.
Man: [Glances left to right; leans in conspiratorially; drops voice] Well, there sure are a lot of Mexicans.

You can test ride my wheelchair anytime

It is very possible on Saturday that I had an ambivalent and yet clumsy fluster flirtation with a boy much, much younger than I am. Let's give me the benefit of the doubt and say he was 19. He was scooping my ice cream, and I was fiddling with my wallet, and we kept locking eyes and dropping things: the check, his pen, my napkin, followed by nervous, stilted laughter. When he came around the counter to pick something up for me, I saw life flash before my eyes: Me at 75, Botoxed lips and cracked skin, egging on my teenaged waiter with a wink and a gravely voice: Go on, handsome, no one will notice the vodka.

Mating Call

Recently the New York Times reported on the findings—originally published in the journal Science—that alongside the use of tools as aids for eating and self-maintenance, chimpanzees have also been observed to employ instruments for sex.

When a male chimpanzee wants to show a female that he has an erection, he will sit in a pose that exposes his engorged genitalia and then will begin to very loudly rip up dead leaves and arrange them in piles around his body, as to attract specific attention to himself. If the female notices and is interested, she will approach him; the two will soon mate.

Human social and sexual rituals, we have to admit, are as similarly elaborate and simple. Before we protest that we are more advanced—we use our opposable thumbs to post messages on the Internet!—think of all the behaviors scientists have observed in other species: Jealousy, social stigma and community punishment, embarrassment, exclusivism, humor, forethought, greed, grudges, loyalty, even oral sex. Rest assured that while Jane Goodall had her back turned, the chimpanzees in Tanzania were writing bad poetry.

So stigmatized am I by this innate sexual nature of all living things that I generally keep my gaze at the three-foot level, so I might engage solely with neutered dogs and babies. These creatures are largely unconcerned with sexual accomplishments, and while otherwise unintelligible, needy, and dripping with saliva, at least they don't leer at anyone from behind the driver's seat of a pickup or brag about how much money they made last year.

Two friends of mine were out at a dive bar recently when a burly man scooped one of them up and begin swinging her around the dance floor. When they stopped, he introduced her to the bartender as "my girlfriend."

"Does she get a say in that?" My other friend asked.

"Nope," he said.

I'd spent that same day at The Field Museum, the only place in Chicago where one can stare at dinosaur bones, Hopi kachina dolls, angry teenagers, and overpriced Waldorf salads. It was in the nature walk section that I accidentally merge with a school field trip, and besides their yellow T-shirts, there is no perceived order to this ragtag group of pedal pushers. Near the section on oil spills, they shout for someone named Jasper. By the diorama of an eagle with a rabbit enclosed in its talons, a few yell and pretend to vomit. The boys are shoving and teasing the girls in that juvenile way one flirts in elementary school, or when two adult friends do not know how to tell each other they'd like to have sex.

The adult chaperon of this whole raucous affair does nothing to calm down this hyperactive group and instead saunters around like a larger, silent sidekick. I'm reading a description on one of the display cases when he walks over to where I stand, positions himself mere inches from me, and proceeds to read every label affixed to the glass aloud. Just as abruptly, he walks away, passing the other display cases without so much as an audible breath.

For the next half hour I try to remove myself from this group, entering quiet rooms with relief before two or three yellow shirts inevitably burst through and flash their cell phone cameras or drop kick each other. A few are just running past me in the World of Birds when I hear the chaperon say, "Hold on a minute." Again he stops at my side, even closer than before, and reads aloud every label affixed to the glass. I am not sure if I should acknowledge his presence, so I awkwardly provide a polite guttural noise instead, without moving my eyes from a placard describing the horned puffin. "During the breeding season," it states, "the horned puffin's flashy bill attracts potential mates."

I pull out my notebook to record this sentence, and the man starts to walk away.

"Later," the description continues, "the colorful plates fall off and give way to a duller, small bill."

I nod in understanding, and as I do, a baby in the next room screams.

If anyone can find the gong, I would like to strike it now.

Today I had a doctor's appointment. I bike there furiously, feeling awesome, because I am riding very fast on my tough-looking mountain bike, and I am wearing an Army jacket, tight pants, and a skateboarding helmet. I am so fierce!  Also, I am lost! Where is the office? I look at the address I have written on my hand. Then I look up at the abandoned building in front of me. The addresses match. I check the one on my hand a few more times, just in case anything changes. Further confirming the building's abandonment is the construction paper over the windows, highlighted by the "For Lease" sign.

Rejected now, I stare aimlessly. I call two friends. I hop on my bike. I ask a woman with a baby carriage. She kindly gives me directions to a random clinic that is not my clinic. By the time I find the actual office, I am very late for my appointment. Grateful, I push toward it, noticing a car speeding toward me at the last minute. As I propel backward to get out of the way, I hit a curb and fall down. I am sprawled out on the pavement. A group of men with scavenging carts across the street laugh. The driver stops and says, "are you OK?" I reassure him — it is a question not worth asking.

In the waiting room, a girl sitting near the windows slides over until she is sitting next to me. I assume this is because there is an appealing women's health calendar or snappy magazine to snatch up, but when I look over, she is actually reading my health forms. I decide she has every right to know about my medical history. And anyway, the people at the clinic are rad upon taking my forms, but I am still late, and my appointment is canceled.

As I ride home, an SUV pulls up next to me; the driver, a man in a suit, rolls down the window and passive aggressively tells me to "be more careful." I am not sure what he is talking about, because I am stopped at the red light like a law-abiding citizen. But still, because my last conversation was about pelvises, I appreciate his overall concern. Bolstered by this citizen support of my personal health and safety, I decide to ride straight home, which is where I remember how all my furniture is covered in tin foil because my cat is incontinent.

The Science of Sleep

Occasionally I have trouble falling asleep at night. I'm not sure why, but I've a feeling it goes beyond the fact that I let strangers sleep on my couch, or because I accidentally eat lots of Adderall before bed — I can explain those things! Besides, this is not a platform for whining. People who share beds with large and confused somnambulists would rightfully find this kind of insomnia inconsequential and unadventurous — assertions to which I'd acquiesce politely by averting my gaze from what can only be described as their attention whoring black eyes and butter knife lacerations. Then, once everyone has calmed down and lowered those heavy pewter desk lamps, I would agree that sleep is one of the best activities on the planet — anything that interrupts it is an enemy to be squashed!! That's when I pull out a large sheet of butcher paper from my backpack and walk them through a series of my favorite sleepytime brain games.

REM = Ridiculously Exhausted Man

First, sleep-inducing strategies should be detailed and repetitive. In this game, I like to pretend people's initials are actually acronyms for random phrases. For example, my initials are E.A.B. While waiting for sleep, I might imagine the following:

1. Ecstasy-addled bowlers
2. Erratic anthropomorphized badgers
3. Excited adolescent boys

Next, I would use the same initials to explain how these subjects are:

1. euphoric about bicycling
2. enraged around bagels
3. excluded at Bar Mitzvah

Finally, I round out my setting or plot line by manipulating the subject to:

1. exit a brauhaus
2. enter a bakery
3. examine adult's boobs

By the time any erratic anthropomorphized badgers enter a bakery and go crazy due to their overwhelming hatred of bagels, you'll be fast asleep. Later, when your sleepwalking partner wakes you on his way to pee in the closet, you'll be thankful, because you were just having really scary nightmares.

How Mary Magdalene Got Her Hot Beach Bod

Frequently, I receive mail not intended for me. When I first moved into my second apartment in Chicago, I became the recipient of several glossy male underwear catalogs. Upon delivery, I would conceal these items between direct mailers and electricity bills and expedite them to the recycling bin, where they would hide amid empty yogurt and takeaway containers until it was time for them to be shredded and tossed in a dumpster. It's not that I don't appreciate a good man relaxing in underwear—but intense male models posing in tight boxer briefs make me feel uncomfortable and insulted. The last time I saw an Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bag, I screamed.

Recently, I've stopped receiving Boxers, Briefs, and Sass!, but did acquire a Star magazine that belongs to someone named James. It is a delivery error that will be corrected immediately, right after I read about a new appetite suppressant mouth spray tested and developed by, respectively, European women and "scientists who want to know the latest news." (You only have to ingest three sprays via "your mouth" five times a day, and "it even tastes good!") I'm excited about this radical new diet drug, as it's time someone noticed that solid food on a plate should only exist in still life paintings. For example:

Delicious!

I Think You Have a Motive

* Disclaimer: This entry was manipulated by accidental hyperstimulation and has proven to not make any sense. The convoluted revision will remain intact, however — I like to recognize my innumerable shortfalls.

It has come to my attention that the title of my blog is misleading. This brazen unemployment label (a topical issue, thus one which should be alluded to frequently) was only accurate in its inception, those end-of-summer evenings of generous daylight which in turn maximized the time I spent fleeing in terror from big feathery birds at the park, all avian megalomaniacs, thick, manipulating beasts with unpigmented plumage and belligerent territorial obsessions.

But that that was September, and lest we forget, Midwest souls grow harder after Midwest winters. Returning to the park during an early spring thaw, I was delighted to note that I'm no longer intimidated by such Darwinian thugs. All such things between Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan — so recently adorned and decadent in appearance — now look emaciated and naked, like a plain bagel. And I am glad for this, finally able to see these birds for what they truly are: Diseased bands of fraudulent egg-layers; scatological maniacs drunk off their assumed white superiority and long sensuous necks.

Freed from this ornithological rage, I'm able to see how this "blog" needs a name change. I, too, am not person I once was.

**********

The word "blog" feels better in quotes. This might be because it will always be a nonsense word, a particular combination of consonants better suited to be the friendly monster in a children's book:

The Blog is gelatinous, like Jell-o, which is something I like to eat. It is also the color turquoise. Nana says this is because the Blog likes to blend in with her wallpaper, which is something the Blog does when it feels scared. The Number One thing the Blog is scared of is the vacuum cleaner, which I like, because it means I can pretend the Blog is scared when I don't feel like cleaning up. Papa jokes that the Blog is like Rufus, our dog, because they are always whining about being hungry and sometimes eat out of the garbage can.


"Blog" is a also scary word because it brings with it the constant aftershock of self-conscious scrutiny; I fall into a pattern when I post things online that goes something like: post. regret for no reason. feel stupid. glad no one reads. rewrite. pray for technology-deprived seclusion to free me from these impulses. In such moments of shame, I daydream at length about barren retreats worthy of only the most brilliant of Russian mathematicians.

************

Perhaps this blog should be called something like, "Journal of a Semi-regularly Employed Ex-English Major Who Occasionally Feels Ashamed of What Can Only be Called a Passing Negligent Attitude Toward Essential Career Networking." But meta-whining aside, the point of all these changing titles is that everything comes down surviving the rat race via the necessary hustling of Self. (This theory is predicated on the belief that rats are into competitive racing and—as suggested by a coffee mug I once saw—also like to wear tiny sneakers and sweatbands and tank tops. Additionally, this theory assumes that rats would actually feel like racing you. Maybe they just want to go home and take a nap. Furthermore, we'd have to suppose these rats are ethically minded. Otherwise, they might try to slip you a little somthin' under the table for a "job" well done — cash and favors you'd probably accept because you're just a human being, and you are deeply confused about why you have to race a rat wearing tiny jogging shorts. Then you are disqualified from the race. Do you know what I mean? [Because I don't].)

But when we talk about the hustling of Self, we mean to be talking about freelancing. The proper title for this position is sometimes "independent contractor." This usually means you work frenzied hours for an overburdened manager for a few days or weeks, procure a paycheck, and spend the rest of your time lounging around in a terrycloth robe eating crumbs from last year's Girl Scout Thin Mints, which you have triumphantly discovered behind a scary plastic jug of cheap vodka in your freezer and an even scarier bag of textureless and suspicious yellow cubes that are (cruelly? humorously?) labeled "Assorted Vegetables." Of these things you ponder: You so hungry. Also: Why is all your food yellow or brown? And finally: You should ask your mother to stop sending you Girl Scout cookies, because such shaving-sized remnants remind you of a real problem, which is such remnants are part of a wider and mildly annoying but somehow still socially acceptable pyramid scheme designed to sound "fun" to an adorable but badge-driven and disgustingly underage and exploitable labor force.

Also, with this bag of vegetables, you need to talk to someone about your obvious negligence in allowing such things to exist inside your apartment. As you'd been scavenging for these delicious—but now stigmatized!—cookie crumbles, you reason this: Nothing would get you to consider putting these —carrots? zucchini?—in your mouth. Besides, you get enough energy from eating those cookies, and enjoy exercising off your high-fructose hallucinations by singing opera and sighing dramatically while hanging one leg out of your bedroom window. This Edie Beales charade continues until your maintenance guy comes over and says you are a home! I have a drilla large hole-a in youra wall tomorrow! which is building code for "time to find another on-site gig, you disgusting excuse for a woman," and also, "Please put on a pair of pants," and "No, not those pants. Is it possible you own something without an elastic waist?"

When such moments occur, you like to remind yourself that you do own lots of pants, and wear those pants a lot. It's just that this general lifestyle of pantslessness helps one avoid both suits and smarminess, two of your greatest dislikes. Also, this lifestyle helps you not have to talk about work. When you freelance in an information-sensitive field, such as educational publishing, you typically accept jobs from various clients who all in competition with one another. This means that someone asks, "What are you working on?" the appropriate answer is actually, "I'm not at liberty to say." 

To be safe, one should use a form of this response in every circumstance. Take Bob, for instance. Bob pretends to work in an office when he is bored and has just made up this dialogue for our benefit, which is kind of funny in a circular-logic sort of way because I just made up Bob:

BOB: [unwraps sandwich at desk]
JIM: [walks past Bob, making appreciative guttural sounds]: Man, Bob, I could smell that from over here. [Admires sandwich.] Where did you go? Glenn's Diner?
BOB: [casts eyes severely toward ceiling and sighs dramatically as he lowers the sandwich]: IF ONLY I COULD GIVE YOU THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION!!!
[Exit BOB]
[Fade light]
[SCENE]

[Director's note: Avoid spotlight on JIM at END SCENE. Central purpose of ACT I SCENE III is to highlight the overindulgent fantasy life of BOB and how coupling that with his frequent isolation aggravates him into behavior his daughter will call "increasingly infantile" in ACT II SCENE II.]

Please Report Babies As Age Zero

The nadir of winter hit hard this year, as I found myself by mid-January in a constant state of self-directed eye-rolling. Perhaps it was when that bartender at Hopleaf yelled at me for my closing-time harmonica solo, or the instant I found a pair of mysterious high-heeled boots in my apartment, or, even, the morning I had to ride the bus home from the other side of the city during Chicago rush hour smelling like a hamburger and looking like a jolly winter clown wearing a ridiculous neon hat with a gigantic pom-pom. No matter the impetus, the time had come for me to put on an earth-toned cardigan sweater and take a nap.

In my new life as an old-fashioned, technology-baffled senior citizen, I've taken to wandering around my apartment wearing an enormous pair of used men's sweatpants and get nervous and overwhelmed when someone shows up with an iPhone. Having inherited a 1940s typewriter from my parents, I now use it to type rambling, nonsensical babble. And because I do not have a TV set up and rarely follow entertainment news, I had no idea until last week who Justin Bieber is, or that Web sites exist about people who look like him. To rub in this post-traumatic culture shock, I received my 2010 Census and got stumped immediately: What is Person 1's age?

An upside to this experiment, I have now been welcomed into several senior social circles. Not only did a lady with a walker slow-clap me as I ran past her in the park recently, but I was also invited to hang out in the fourth-floor room of a resident at The Ivy Apartments last week after an afternoon performance from my weekend CouchSurfer, an old timey brass music program which I attended and laughed and clapped and sang along with, all while receiving a refreshing cup of Sprite and a napkin of snacks.

"Honey," Blanche chirped as she showed me her closet, which cloistered one particularly flashy fur coat. "I'm not trying to get any action; I'm 94 years old."

I know exactly what you mean, I thought, and turned to run my hand along her armoire.