Summer in the City: Part 4

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I’m not going to exaggerate and say my Pitchfork weekend was oMfG-u-had-to-be-there-FTW!!1111!!!, because it wasn’t really. I didn’t recognize half the bands, spent a great deal of time worried about staying hydrated, and got slammed with the most gawd awful volunteer job ever on Sunday. But still, I’ll give the weekend a Pretty Good. Especially because I cut myself a pair of kick-ass jorts for the occasion.

I’m not going to waste my time writing about the music. Because you would pee your pants laughing at how uneducated I would sound. So I’ve included some of my favorites below.







Basically it was a good weekend to get turned onto some new bands, get turned off by others, and check out a few that are working their way up my list. I enjoyed the ballerinas and onstage energy at Major Lazer, although I did not appreciate the daggering. I liked Big Boi bringing back some of those all-time favorite Outkast hits. As always, I enjoyed the artwork at Flatstock, and I tried some new food (vegan mint ice cream!). Also, I made $125 off the weekend since I won extra tickets through Twitter, then sold them on Craigslist. Amidst the heat, I was able to drink enough water, didn't get sunburned, and lived to tell about it.

Summer in the City: Part 3, A Very American Weekend

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I like holidays so much to the point that in college, I took notes with ink tailored to the season (orange & black: Halloween, red & green: you get the point). So I couldn’t wait for July 4th, especially when my plans turned out to be so spectacular.

In a nutshell, the three-day weekend went like so, starting 6 p.m. Friday night: carefully planned Red, White, and Blue outfits; crazy dance raver lightshow concert; many many grilled meats and beers with friends from here and friends from there; sitting on the beach in Lake Michigan (sunburn, reading, reading, sunburn and reading); more grilled meats with wine this time; fireworks; White Sox game; mustache madness; another grilled meat plus a Lemon Chill this time; more fireworks. And around 11 p.m. Monday night, collapse into bed surrounded by three fans because in true July 4th fashion, it was 90+ degrees, or at least felt like it.

I thought I might go as far as to detail the whole weekend, but all that would entail would be gushing about how wonderful it all was. And that could be boring. So I will just leave it here. Happy 234th Birthday America! Hope 235 is just as fun.

Summer in the City: Part 2

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

In two consecutive days of attending the Taste of Chicago, I ate the following:
- vegetarian gourmet deep dish pizza
- chicken tostada salad
- chicken wings and hush puppies
- tequila lime chicken taco
- cherry Italian ice
- Italian breaded steak sandwich
- pot stickers
- crab rangoon
- rainbow ice cream

This is why Americans are fat.

Summer in the City: Part 1

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I don’t know how I ended up in a three-story warehouse party with free booze, free concerts and DJs, and free mini hotdogs, but I did. It was some invitation-only thing sponsored by Heineken, and my friends had an extra ticket. I find this out last minute and bike three and half fast miles up North just in time to catch the end of Matt & Kim’s “Daylight.”

The party looked like this: freely flowing beer. Enough material to play “find the biggest hipster” for hours on end. A (not very good) DJ spinning on glowing Heineken barrels several feet above the crowd. Screens everywhere flashing INSPIRE INSPIRE INSPIRE so ginourmously and frequently that I think I began to feel inspired - but maybe all the beer had something to do with that.

By the time Cold War Kids came on stage, I didn’t even care how unreasonably tall every single freaking person standing in front of us was. I danced, I sang shouted, I laughed when some rando dude with glasses crookedly falling from his face tried to mack on my friend. The show ended, empty Heineken glasses were hidden in purses and pockets, we were herded out.

The night went on. On my bike ride back, I passed an interesting assortment of a band: one saxophone, two trombones, one drum, one flute, and one maraca. They were playing something jazzy and had attracted a crowd. I hang there for a bit, then ran into I guy from one of my temp jobs months back. The catch-up conversation was good, and I told him to invite me to his next punk show. One more beer and some late night mac ‘n cheese later, I was in bed.

When I woke up the next day at 11:30, I felt refreshed. Then I ate a burrito.

Why I < 3 H20 Aerobics

Remember that one time I ran a marathon? I mean those three times?

God, I can’t stand running.

I follow a probably unhealthy cycle in which I run and train and train and run for months and months and months, and as soon as I cross the finish line after 26.2 miles, I can’t look at a pair of Asics without thinking about how miserable it would be to have to put them on and run a measly block. So I don’t. Meanwhile I continue eating cheese and guzzling wine as I had been before. Then I get fat. In other words, I start feeling unhealthy and moody and a tad bit pudgy.

So now I try to maintain my fitness level by adding some diversity. But it doesn’t matter how diverse your workouts are, there are always days (like 90% of them) when I just don’t feel like doing it and would rather go home to eat cheese and drink wine.

Thank the Heavens for the water aerobics class. I now plan my lap swimming around their schedule. Cause the teacher’s music rocks super hard. I even told her so.

She’s got a good mix of ‘80s and oldies. She even incorporates current events - like when she played the Blackhawks theme song. I also enjoy the fact that she wears flashy headbands, just as you would expect a water aerobic teacher to. All this adds to great hour of swimming. Sometimes I even take a few laps with the kickboard so that I can enjoy a particularly good song. I already went swimming two times this week! No I can devour that wine and cheese without the slightest bit of guilt.

Picky Pet Peeves

Since I got a growed up job that involves doing a lot online, I’ve been spending more time on the Web. And ever so slowly, I’ve developed a short little list of things that have come to bother me. I know you are very interested, and that is why you are still reading.

• Tweeting a link to your blog that is really a link to your Facebook page, which then has the link to your blog. I’m not a big fat dummy. I get what you’re trying to do. Your Facebook fan is just so much more interesting than every other Facebook fan page out there, and you would like me to see it/get page views. Unfortunately I don’t have a click of my busy day to waste, so shoving 15 links in my face will only get you one thing: a bit fat unfollow.

• On that note, if I follow your blog in my google reader, please do not withhold pictures and especially do not make me click on links to read the content. The point of my reader is to read your blog. If you make me click all over the place to do so, I’m unsubscribing. Unless you are the About.com French Language blog. In that case I will still be pissed and will continue to play your stupid mind games because there is French involved.

• Not shortening URLs when publicly sharing links. Just-between-you-and-me emails or gchat convos are fine because they’re spur of the moment and all, but please consider the eyeballs of people who read your stuff when you publish this: http://tickets.disney.go.com/buy/TicketTrans?storeID=DRD&tktFitterDefaultQty=ADULT=1|CHILD=0|ALL=1&lengthOfStay=7&tokens=m3NYXjZuC09VE7x4%2B0jnT110o4GFb/DqOkrQ54xWxe5YKmRR5cvwV5YGlrPuirisst7ndyzcAbAuchhjJogRzgHO3IX3qmXy97Fb%2BbENCrPG69wDATJZgsk/xoYKeFQfhMl4XhtHMZXSUJWUB7tbYvHB%2B1zz3s7h65xXOBpAc%2B/VRnmlv67B1XT20T392vFhYUI/qhjKxkMGBi4QkoKFQAVY7CiN01WC1c4YbCEUZOu2DVCto85j1H6QQrLKAwkIWuZoj%2BQLBd7cUqvbpZzKCpGCv0qBbNzjgec9Y8mf9UAz8bld9clw032EmuakXsl5hGP%2BCz9G/FamHtpBS%2BKK51rIViepGVtZfMv0nuXbWCTYxxAo/sN1crbqtRYxxc93HaBTreon0TnoV9X9Zn5N0TjkY21QYUcPHaBTreon0TlPTbeN/aYMJVspk%2B/Wk%2BRmUU0fmGmC3WasiCaNNoH5N2d6ItmHAR25n4sL9PHn5YRNMYXXOy1YUyLn2eihPLyaHyR5LdXqoYPfpx5jfinkJE583l0BFcr/wozFOKwhvo6HGNYisLiHXw9OqkWnkVmRxyc4UUeNGzHYic%2BbfSW1HccnOFFHjRsx3xYXzoM2byc0F%2BFaQOWFZyNqKNzo7MLyE7VllRRmOrDnR/LRS1/lRM2rNpDLKx/7wxwglGN8H0NHgtZuPic2qvRGHj%2BESuoDOJzO2Xwu%2BGANlQfRBdTGEeU0I99daNEFuPAxwRgZEJA%3D&drnid=7238430 instead of this: http://tinyurl.com/26yato4.

• Tweeting about your kids when your twitter page is not supposed to be about your kids. It's pretty simple. If you were a mommy blogger, I would not be following you. Unfortunately you provide other valuable information that I do enjoy, so I have to somehow figure out how to embrace the knowledge that your 3-year-old woke up the baby from his nap by blowing in his face.

• Acting like publishing readers’ content for no money should be really exciting. “Oh my gosh do you want your name and your words to be in print???!?!?!? Send your movie review or top secret vacation tips, and we will publish them FOR FREE!!” If this pay scale really appeals to people, they can just publish things on their own personal blog.

• Pop-up Ads. So 2001. Stop it allrecipes.com and others. And grow up.

Why I Made For the City's Worst Parisienne

Parisien Salon published an entertaining article earlier this week on the 10 golden rules of being a parisienne. In response, I thought about all the ways I sucked at it. I could have lived there for 10 years and never been able to blend in. Here’s why.

1. I own too much Dri-Fit clothing. Parisiennes are not the sportive type. They don’t run. If I didn’t want a crowd of French guys oogling me, I had to find a secret place to stretch during my runs. Also, most parisiens were really interested to hear about my marathon training. They had never met anyone who ran marathons. In America, where everyone and their grandma does them, I get no respect.

2. I dip croissants in my soup. A teacher at my school looked at me in disbelief when I did this. She told me croissants are strictly a breakfast food only to be consumed with something sweet, such as jam or jelly. I’m sorry, it tasted good. Other food faux pas of mine included consuming the breakfast-restricted pain au chocolate and café au lait whenever I damn well pleased. And sometimes I threw a baguette on the table and didn’t pay attention to turn it right side up. OMG I’M GONNA DIE (according to French superstition).

3. I think adults should use adult forms of transportation. My bike tires are the most kiddish wheels I’ve got. This isn't cool. Neither is this. Nerds.

4. If something brings joy to my life, I shall smile. Parisiennes don’t smile (#2 on the list of what inspired this post). Unfortunately, I do. Which is why I always got hit on. Old men thought I was hitting on them. No sir, I do not find you adorable. The cute little French girl trading me a lollipop for a piece of my baguette made me smile SORRY YOU GOT CONFUSED.

5. My hair will never be dark brown or black. My hair is blondish brownish whatever. Sometimes, I entertain the idea of dying it red. Which is still not dark brown or black. I don’t have perfectly olivey European skin, so dark brown or black hair would just make me look goth.

6. My clothes are too practical or comfortable or something. I will never be able to wear a scarf as effortlessly as a parisienne can. Can you ever see me pulling off an outfit like this? And I’ve got a rule when buying skirts and dresses: pockets. Which eliminates many chic parisienne options. Oh well. I like not losing my keys.

Big Fat Liar

I was ghcatting with my good friend Brad the other day. Brad went to school in California, thus is very up to speed about doing things that are nice for Earth. I thought I would brag to him about all the nice things for Earth I've started doing over the past few months.

As I was rambling off a few ways I've changed my day-to-day life in the name of Earth, I realized how much of a big fat liar I was being. All I really care about is saving money. I guess Earth is happy about the changes I've made, but I really made them for entirely selfish reasons.

Like riding my bike. If I am really tired and groggy and don't feel like riding my bike to French class, do I say to myself "You know, Betsy, Earth would really like it if you rode your bike there"? No. I think, "Do you want to spend $4.50 to get there? Or do you want to spend $0?" Then I ride my bike.

My roommates and I also make our own cleaning supplies (which is really just dumping vinegar on anything that's dirty) and have reduced our paper towel consumption to one roll a month. I might have led people on to believe that I do these things for Earth. But I don't. A giant bottle of vinegar is $4, lasts forever, and can be used to clean anything. That's all I've spent on cleaning supplies since February, and there's still plenty of vinegar left for more months to come.

I guess it just sounds better to say I do this stuff for Earth. And I do like Earth, so it is a nice added advantage that the Earth might get something out of all this. It's embarrassing to admit that I'm really just cheap. But it's the truth.

Want vs. Need

I was sitting in my giant new cubicle yesterday, wondering how I should personalize it and fill it up with tons of stuff. While pondering this very important issue, I noticed my entire cubicle was the size of my bedroom in Paris. The cubicle is probably bigger.

I don’t remember the measurements of the Paris room, but I am pretty sure it was illegal to live in a space that small. I didn’t really care though. I made sure my life fit inside that space, because that was all I had. I had a futon, a desk, and a closet. How much more does one person need?

Transitioning back to my American roots was much easier than I thought it would be. The hard part is resisting them. After surviving on very limited wardrobe for a year, I tried to remember that new clothes were not really necessary. But when I began working at threadless, where slightly damaged t-shirts were free, my American greed got the best of me. I took more than I needed. I probably have 50 threadless shirts now. I didn’t even need to take one.

Now that I have that out of my system, I think I need to try to find some sort of median between accumulation of useless crap and simplicity. Instead of grabbing as many tees as I can get my greedy little hands on, I am trying to focus on purchasing good quality, evergreen basics (ie black clothes). I will spend 40+ hours a week at this cubicle, and it would be silly to resist adding a little something something to spruce it up. Where is my French magnetic poetry?

I Am The 260,000,000th Richest Person in the World

GOOD Magazine sends some pretty good stuff through my Google Reader. Here's one. It shows how a "meager" US salary of $40,000 per year looks compared to the whole world:


I entered my salary and I learned that I am in the top 4.33 percent of richest people in the world. Then I learned this:

$8 could buy me 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy me an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy me a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy me a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

It's an excellent campaign. I hope it moves people to take action.

Pointless Word of The Day

Every morning on my ride up to the 32nd floor, I get sucked into watching the elevator TV, which flashes weather, bits of news, stock prices, etc. Today, I learned a new word of the day. Bom·bi·nate. intransitive verb. to buzz or hum, as in the following sentence: "Every once in awhile, my computer bombinates loudly, as if in protest."

Why use a fancy pants big word when you could just use a simple word everyone will understand? I would never tell anyone my computer was bombinating. I would sound look like a moron. No one speaks like that. In non-pretentious conversation, computers buzz and hum. They don't bombinate.

No Chicago Public Library. Just No.

I saw something interesting via the @ChiTribBooks twitter account. It was a link to MattRyd.com where he posted this photo:


On the "blogger's" laptop are stickers that say “Follow me: @iamfullofit” and “blogging rulz!”

I am a pretty prominent supporter of Chicago Public Library. I put more library books on hold than I can possibly read, and I am forever impressed with their programming. They've got stuff for the benefit of both readers and non-readers. But this campaign is just dumb.

I'm not taking offense to this ad because I'm a blogger. I come from the self-proclaimed best journalism school in the galaxy, and I watched the whole industry get knocked on its ass because it poo-pooed the Internet, then freaked when everyone realized it was kind of a big deal. I know public libraries are struggling to stay afloat for a lot of the same reasons. So maybe you don't get blogging. Maybe you don't get twitter. That's okay, catching up isn't easy. But thinking you're too good for the things probably will affect if you're around 10 years from now is silly.

Five Good Reasons to Bike

1. I can eat two red velvet cupcakes a day and not be bulging out of my jeans
2. I can afford to buy two red velvet cupcakes a day with the $$ I save not taking CTA
3. I can leave dudes in my dust on bridges (read: the only hills in Chicago)
4. I can get there faster than bus or train
5. I can practice take pedestrian shortcuts through parks, dead-end streets, etc.

Reject Me Like It's Your Job

I'll have to be as vague and non-name-cally as possible as I publicly air my next grievance to the world. I have a problem with hiring managers who are too busy or too flakey to reject me.

If I have earned anything, it is a brief "sorry, not you" email. I came into your office and interviewed with multiple members of your staff. I answered your poorly worded questionaire even though I had already addressed every question in my cover letter. I took a writing test. And, in the case of a babysitting position, I came to your home and spent an hour learning about your kids' allergies and pooping habits. In all these examples, I know I was one of the last few standing. You said you'd call, and you didn't. So why the blow off?

Don't think I didn't follow up. I did. Thanks for the interview. Have you moved forward in chosing a candidate for this position? That's nice I know when your kid poops, was there even reason for me to know? Do these people think I can't handle being shut down? Because I can. I've asked out guys before who have rejected me (once). I can take it, especially because being rejected from any one of these positions is something I rightfully deserved.

But, these people instead opted for silence. I agree it is an effective to let someone know your decision. But I also think only 12 year olds should be able get away with turning their backs and going for the old ignoring bit to get a point across. But when it's your job to hire or not hire people? I think you need to man up and learn how to let people down. Especially if they know when your kids poops.

30-Second Stories

I am at the packing table at threadless. We are sending tees to Sweden, New Zealand, Norway, and beyond. "I like looking at where the shirts are going," says a girl next to me. "Sometimes I wish I could climb in and go along with them."

I am leaving the grocery store and something very strange makes me stop. After a few seconds, I realize no, someone has not taken my women's vintage blue Schwinn sprint with a black Working Bikes sticker from my apartment and locked it to this pole. I put down my gallon of milk on the sidewalk and pull out my notebook. I jot a short note and string it through the brake cables of the bike. I write "Dear owner of this bike. I have the exact same bike! I bought it at Working Bikes, too!"

I am trying on designer jeans. The sales woman asks what I think about a pair of Joe's. I tell her I think they make me look homely. She gives me a bizarre look. "Homely? I think they look good." I don't even know what about these jeans is homely. Can one describe jeans as homely? Did I just feel like using that word in a sentence today? She says they make my butt look good. She is right. I buy them.

I finally run into my neighbor with the typewriter. "What are you writing?" I ask. He is working on another novel, but wants to finish this one for once so that he can get it published. He says he is sorry if the typing bothers me. He hasn't quite caught up with the times and purchased one of those laptops. "No, I like coming home to you typing," I say. "It inspires me."

Saving Money Like It's My Job

I don't know how it happened. I sort of only know why it happened. Regardless, it happened. Couponing happened.

Sometime recently, I started following all these coupon blogs. They link to printable coupons, post senarios where you can get stuff for nearly free when you pair multiple coupons with a sale, and give information about rebates and free samples. The blogs started to get to me. I wondered how much money I could save if I followed their advice, which is: Clip and organize mass amounts of coupons. Pay attention to the sales. Strike with your coupons when the prices are the lowest. Instead of going shopping when you're out of something, live off your stockpile of toilet paper, or body wash, or frozen fruit juices that you bought for almost nothing. Save tons of money.

I experimented with the concept at Target last night. I gathered a handful of coupons. I made a very specific shopping list. I spent a pretty long time shopping because I wanted to make absolutely sure I was getting the right products. And when I got my receipt, I found out I had saved $18.97. I don't do math. So I'll round up. I saved 20 freaking dollars. And that was only a backpack full of purchases. I was so excited that I spent $20 at a bar last night and did not feel the least bit guilty, because it was almost like I got two glasses of wine and a tall can of PBR for free.

So now I am going to get crazy about coupons. Yeah, it takes time to save all this money. But saving money is one of my most favoriteist hobbies ever. I am thinking if I ever get a legit job, I'll still keep this up and put the money I'm saving aside to fund my future travels. I'm coming for you New Zealand.

I promise this is my first and last blog post about coupons. I am sure my blog readers do not care about the combination of razor blades I purchased to save $7.21. But just know that while you are going about your normal daily life, I am saving hundreds, possibly millions of dollars on groceries with my precious coupons.

Past vs. Present

I would like to share this Google buzz conversation with you. For context, know that I shared a Paris mapcut by Karen O'Leary:

don - I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna change the label from "Buzz" to "Betsy really wants you to know how great France is by posting a ton of links about it everyday 14 mars
me - well then unfollow me. 14 mars
amy - betsy used to live in paris. 11:10
jake - older than jesus riding a dinosaur. 13:35

I included the date and time so that you are also aware that, yes, my gmail is both in French and military time.

Okay, I am obsessed with all things France and especially Paris-related ones. Moving to Paris was the first big girl thing I did after gaduating college, and I'm never going to get over it. Having said that, I came back to a city that I love perhaps not more, but equally. And so now I shall share one of my favorite poems.

CHICAGO

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

- Carl Sandburg

Lessons Learned on a Bike in Winter

It feels like winter is almost over, but any Chicagoan knows at least one mid-March snowstorm is still waiting to sneak up on us. Even so, I've been seeing a lot more people commuting to work on their bikes. I kind of liked having the road almost to myself all winter. It was an enlightening and empowering experience. So I compiled a short list of things I learned from biking through a not-so-bad Chicago winter.

1. Strangers admire you and tell you so. There were a couple weeks where I couldn't ride the elevator up to work without making a new friend. These new friends liked to tell me how they wished they could bike through the winter, asked me for tips, gave me tips of their own, and basically elevated me to Dalai Lama status because I had a bike helmet slung through my arm on a cold day.

2. Friends don't really care. "Well no one told you that you had to ride your bike." Okay. Fine. I'll stop complaining about being cold, because it is ultimately my own fault.

3. It's okay to conceed to the weather every one in awhile. I was determined to ride through a winter storm watch for whatever silly reason. I made it to work safely and was glad to have a change of clothes. Afterwards, I realized how stupid of an idea it has all been. It had snowed several more inches during the time I was at work, making the roads more dangerous and slick. Also, I would have had to change back into my still-damp riding clothes and potentially catch hypothermia. I decided I still wanted to live to see my next birthday and took public transit home. But then I had to lug my bike up and down stairs through trains and buses, and it was just a huge pain in the ass. I shouldn't have ridden in the first place.

4. Looking ridiculous keeps you warm. Early in winter, a veteran biker suggested wearing ski goggles to protect my face. That sounded needless and stupid. And then one month later, I was wearing ski goggles to bike to work. They kept condesation off my glasses and blocked wind from the upper part of my face. I ultimately didn't care about looking non-human. I was warm(ish).

5. In bad weather, remember you're not the only one having trouble braking. Being a smart biker means watching out for yourself by watching out for everyone else. I slowed at green lights and paused longer than necessary at stop signs because I assumed the big bad cars might not be able to stop in time to avoid killing me. And I'm still alive, which is nice.

6. It's nice that winter doesn't last forever. As proud of myself as I am for bearing it through some pretty low-temp days, I'm glad to be seeing a change of seasons. Changing in and out of three shirts, two jackets, one hat, two pairs of gloves, one balaclave, one pair of tights, one pair of pants, two pairs of socks and one pair of boots several times can be exhausting. Nice to make your reacquaintance spring!

My New Neighborhood

The shop guys work on fixing my bike and offer me a cup of coffe while I wait.

I walk to after-school tutoring. One day the students read some of their writing for everyone. Everyone laughs at a 7 year old's story about a milkshark. I am proud because I sat next to her as she wrote her sentences without help.

The Blommer Chocolate Company makes two blocks of my commute to work smell delicious.

Sometimes I see other women biking to work, but not usually.

The Walgreens cashier speaks Spanish or English, depending on the customer.

The coffee shop that was replaced by the Bank of America two years ago just reopened, and everyone is happy.

Anyone who doesn't get to the yoga studio 20 minutes early on Sunday probably won't get a spot (that's because it's free).

I get lost walking home from the grocery store even though it is less than a half mile away.

At the Damen L stop in the mornings, the CTA worker standing by the turnstiles reminds me of a circus ringmaster. "Next downtown train approach in less than one minute!" And everyone scurries to make to the platform before the train comes and goes.

My neighbor has a typewriter. He sits at a table in his black-and-white tiled kitchen and types wearing his bathrobe.

I buy my fruits and vegetables from a store that only sells fruits and vegetables.

A man on the bus spit shines his shoes.

The cafe downstairs frequently burns coffee.

No Job? Volunteer

Yesterday I went to a volunteer information session. To start off, you always have to go around and say your name, what you do in grown-up life, why you're interested in the organization, etc. I've done this enough times to have a staple what-I-do joke ready. I say "My name is Betsy and my job is to find a job." People laugh. I'm pretty funny.

I do one of the first introductions, then listen as every single person after me also introduces himself or herself as unemployed — recently laid off, working part-time at a clothing store, whatever. From the little I gather about them, these people sound super educated. Between the five of us, we speak German, French, Mandarin, Spanish and Hebrew. I am the youngest and probably least educated person there.

In 2008, I left the country for a year just when our economy got really yucky. I heard a lot about the doom and gloom, but I wasn't around to see how the economy was affecting people's lives. Well now, here I am. Sitting at this table. These people are smart. These people have marketable skills. These people probably have plenty of solid work experience. These people do not have jobs.

On one hand, it makes me feel nice that as white do-gooders, we are all finding constructive things to do with our unemployed selves. By volunteering, we're making the world a better place, you know? But at the same time, I am remembering when someone told me "Just think. You don't have a job, and you have all these skills. Think about the people that don't have jobs and don't have any skills. You are much better off than them."