stories from the city, stories from the lake

Erica and I have spent a good bit of time over the years debating the worthiness of actions that lead to stories, whether a good story is a reason for doing something and what is more important, the happening or the telling. I don't know the answer but I do know that life lately has seemed somewhat ridiculously overfull of metaphors, where I see the world through stranger's glasses on a day where I desperately need larger vision or where I hear somebody's joy in personal independence only days before the holiday when the country celebrates its own freedom. I'm in this more-or-less perpetual state of wonder, watching stories unfold around me rather perfectly and seeing how they lead me to new insights about myself, and figuring out how those insights translate into words and more stories that I can tell to others and perhaps show them a little bit of who I am. I've always been a fairly interior person, and lately all I can seem to do is talk about myself and all of the amazingly beautiful things that my life is filled with.

When did this happen? Not all at once. It's been just over a year since I moved into my own apartment, began a life that was truly my own, and that has had a great deal to do with it. But I think that there's something much more indefinable, some massive interior shift that has brought me to this place where nearly everything seems to be a story and also some sort of radical truth. I don't know what that change could be, except that I finally have a clearer vision of who I am and who I want to be, and the stories seem to flow from that. But it might also be that I'm starting to think more like a writer, and that these stories and perfect moments and metaphors have been here all along and I was too tied up in other things to notice. All I know is that I'm grateful for them now.

The writer thing, I have to admit, is a little terrifying. I don't consider myself a writer, really, but I have to recognize that words and the writing and telling of them has gained considerable prominence in the last few months. Not a week goes by where somebody doesn't tell me that I should write more, be a writer, do this somehow in a way that goes beyond this simple blog and the group of friends and acquaintances that read it. I don't know how to do that. I don't know if doing this in a more high-pressure way would ruin it for me, as "work" and its related anxieties ruined music for me for a while. I don't know what I could write that more people than you all, my regular readers, would want to listen to. I don't know so many things, but if I sit tight I think the stories will keep happening and whatever change I'm going through will reach some sort of logical-but-unforeseen conclusion that I would never have imagined. It will make a great story later, no matter how it turns out.

the low road

I'm not feeling terribly well today. It shouldn't be a huge surprise; I've been playing hard lately, going out and running around and generally not sitting still for long enough to even let the tiredness hit me. I've been enjoying myself greatly but I've finally hit the point where, when I do let myself relax for more than a few minutes, I feel the exhaustion wash over me like a wave and I think to myself: Maybe I should try and sleep more than five hours a night. Maybe I should stay home, not make plans at 10 PM, opt out of the party, stop obsessively baking cookies and pies and tarts (but not cooking any "real" food, god no) and traversing the city at every opportunity, and just let myself sit still and quiet.
It's hard for me. Mania seems to be my fallback mode right now, as it has been for much of the past year. But if nothing else, I absolutely hate being sick while living by myself. Being sick is never fun, and while I lived with other people I always tried to take as much care of myself as I could when I was ailing. But in all honesty, now that's when I most wish there was somebody around to be there for me. Somebody to go to the store and buy me orange juice and saltines. Somebody to hand me a cool wet washcloth, rub my shoulders, pop in a movie, turn the lights low, kiss my cheek and tell me I'll be better soon. I feel needy and alone, more tired and ill than I would probably be if there were actually somebody here. It erodes my resolve to be who I am by myself, and I resent my illness for that.
I'm not sick yet. But because of the threat of that loneliness, I'm staying home tonight and treating myself well. Putting in that movie or cracking that book myself before I wish there was somebody else here to help me do it. In a day or two there will be time for cookies and bike rides and friend nights and all of those other good things that I'm so lucky to have filled my life with, but tonight it's just me. And a lot of Emergen-C.

independence

I'm not much of a patriot in the traditional sense of the word, but I'm a strong believer in independence. I believe in strength and freedom and self-love and beauty, in self-actualization and figuring out how to be whole instead of fragmented. In an ideal world, I'd be able to apply all of these hopes and dreams to the country as a whole, but for now I take my independence in the forms I can get it and those are generally personal.

I was at work a few days ago, very near to closing time after a long tiring seven hours, and a regular customer walked in. I went to greet her; she's a very sweet person, always has a smile for me, but she also usually takes forever to pick something out so I was both happy and full of dread when I saw her. Sad but true: no matter how nice you are, sometimes I wish you'd just pick a flower out already and call it a day. She was getting three flowers for her girlfriend; I believe it was their anniversary. (Another rant: my gay male co-worker gets hit on constantly and I almost never do. The queer men flirt, the queer ladies buy flowers for their girlfriends. Frustrating.) My co-worker and I helped her pick out her blooms, wrapped them in paper, and walked back towards the door with her as we chatted.

Suddenly she turned around and, with a preface I can't recall, told us that she had just come out to her mother. I realized suddenly that she was practically glowing, so happy and excited and relieved that she was finally no longer living with the threat of this moment of self-actualization that the vast majority of queer people go through eventually. She had told her mother, and her mother had been gracious and happy for her, and so we rejoiced with her. My co-worker told his story (his mother broke out in hives) and I did not because I wasn't asked. (I don't code as gay, it seems; I've been asked such an unimaginable number of times if I am queer, which is a source of irritation. Perhaps I need to shave my head and get a tattoo? No? Ah well.) But we celebrated with her for a minute or two, this stranger who had just revealed a deeply personal moment to us standing in the door of the shop.

My own coming out was both less and more dramatic than I had anticipated. I was twenty-three, and it was the day before I moved to Chicago for grad school. My girlfriend and I had been dating for about eight months at that point, but I had been chickening out of telling my parents; my mom grew up Mormon and is also prone to random bouts of freak-out-edness when I least expect it, so I wasn't sure what kind of reaction she would have. But on this day, the day before I left, we were standing in the kitchen crying and yelling at each other for some reason that I can't remember in the slightest now when she suddenly turned to me and said "Your friend A is really nice." It was such a complete non-sequitor that it stopped me in my tracks and left me with no idea how to respond. I stopped crying, and after a moment said that she was not my friend, she was my girlfriend, and my mother looked at me scornfully to let me know that of course she knew that. We hugged, and the fight wound down into a rare moment of intimacy between us.

The next day, I moved to Chicago. I told my father immediately before getting out of the car at the airport (because how awkward would a two-hour car ride be after a revelation like that?) and he told me he just wanted me to be happy. I flew away on wings, relieved that things had gone as relatively well as they had, and we rarely spoke of it until a much more traumatic fight a few years later. But that plane ride, heading towards a new place and a new life where I could start over and be who I really was, felt like freedom.

seasonal berry disorder

So it's strawberry season, which means that the farmers markets and grocery stores are flooded with fresh ripe berries; I can smell them as soon as I walk into my local Jewel, which is not much of a bastion of fresh affordable garden-y goodness most of the time. It also means that, in a veritable orgy of berry excess, I've been through nearly seven quarts in the last week and a half. There have been drinks, pies, more drinks, and even dumplings, although I still haven't made the vegan strawberry shortcake I dreamed of earlier this summer (there have been issues with my attempts at vegan whipped cream). Every time I think I'm done, I walk past the produce section and somehow end up with another quart in my bag.

It started last week when I ended up with four quarts all at the same time. (Because I'm awesome like that.) My fridge was overflowing, and so I invited some friends over and started chopping. First up was a less sweet and less drink-like version of the red wine recipe at the end of this post, and these dumplings from Smitten Kitchen. A "baked" summertime good without the baking? Hell yes. It helps that they were delicious. The next night I tried my hand a little more earnestly (results shortly) with a red wine drink that was like strawberry sangria and strawberry gin and tonics, which I brought to a girls' night party and which we demolished. And finally, there was what was to be my crowning glory: a strawberry rhubarb pie, also from Smitten Kitchen.

I don't make pies all that often, but there's just something about them. A pile of cookies might taste just as good or better, but to me a pie just looks so much more impressive. I think, wow, that person made pie crust! Assembled things! Perhaps beat some meringue! I usually avoid them because they're harder to transport, but this week I was overloaded with strawberries and rhubarb from the farmer's market and I just had to give it a shot. I also had received a surprise package in the mail a few weeks ago from my friend Shawn: two large nested cardboard boxes that ended up holding a very nice maple rolling pin. Until now, I've dealt with pie crust by either rolling it out with a glass or simply smushing it around the pie plate until it covered everything it was supposed to cover. But this time, I whipped out my rolling pin and had that plate covered in next to no time. I added the gooey filling and then made a lattice top over it (My first lattice top! I took a cell phone picture, because I'm a dork) and baked it until it was brown and bubbly. Then it was nearly 2 AM (summer heat means using my insomnia for late-night cooking), and so I went to bed.

The results, when I tried it the next day, were much more disappointing than my clumsy-but-still-exciting lattice. My rhubarb was crunchy, not to the point of inedibility, but certainly not the warm gooey texture I'd been dreaming of. So I made myself another gin and tonic and vowed to try again next year.

Strawberry Sangria

1 bottle (at least) red wine
1 quart strawberries, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1 bunch fresh mint, finely chopped

Er, basically just mix everything together and chill. My boss (who gave me this recipe; I love my job sometimes) recommended 1/2 cup of sugar per quart of berries but that was waaaaaay too sweet for my taste. I'd actually recommend, if you're with a few people, mixing a few spoonfuls of the wine-and-berry mixture with a glass of non-strawberried wine; we did that at the party I was at last week and it was just enough sweetness to add a new dimension without being overwhelming. You can smash the strawberries with a potato masher or other blunt object to make the drink a little smoother.

Strawberry Gin and Tonic

1 quart strawberries, sliced
3 tbs sugar
juice of one lime
splash of gin

Once again, just mix it all together and smash the berries if desired. Let the above ingredients chill together for at least fifteen minutes to let the strawberries macerate, and then mix a few spoonfuls into your gin and tonic.

clothes minded

When I was a little girl, I was all about the dress-up. I would run around my apartment complex in a pink ballerina costume asking people if they thought I was pretty, and I frequently put on a frilly dress, white gloves, large hat, and lace-trimmed socks and demand to go to the grocery store with my mother. (She loved that, as you can imagine.) But as I got older and more self-conscious, as girls tend to do, dress-up became a far smaller part of my life.

It wasn't until I started reading and thinking about gender that dress-up made a reappearance in my life. Ru-Paul's words, that we're all born naked and the rest is drag, resonated with me and freed me up to experiment just a little bit with my presentation. I've written this summer about feeling fairly androgynous but there have also been other phases, most notably a resurgence of my femmey self a few summers ago. I haven't been feeling particularly girly lately, but when I heard that Genderqueer Chicago was going to be having a drag 1920's party I knew I was going to have to femme myself up in some sort of outrageous fashion. For one thing, I look like a total dweeb in boy drag--think bible salesman--and for another I have a very flapper-esque body type. When else was my lack of boobage going to count in my favor for girl drag? But also, I just kind of wanted to, and for me being an excessively feminine girl is pretty damn subversive feeling.

And so I showed up in perhaps the shortest black dress I've ever owned, my hair curled and pinned on top of my head and sporting heels, two pearl necklaces, and a peacock feather. My friends were all looking incredibly dapper in their suits, fedoras, knickers, and mustaches, and much to my relief and surprise the vast majority of people walking into the rather swanky pretentious under-lit gay bar we were at were decked out in similar fashion. Dress parties are only fun if people really go for it, and I've been to more than my fair share where I did and other people did not; it's gotten to the point where, if I'm invited to a theme event, I often show up in normal clothes with my costume in tow just in case. I will never forget showing up to my first Ugly Christmas Sweater party (in another town, which pretty much obliterated my chances of a change of clothing) wearing a christmas tree turtleneck, red pants, and a vest embroidered with huge Santa faces only to find out that no one else had dressed up. And then there was the early nineties party where I showed up in neon Blossom shorts and a midriff-baring orange plaid halter top tied in front, only to discover that the host had forgotten to inform most of the other guests that it was a theme party at all. I believe both events ended with excessive drunkenness on my part, largely due to embarrassment and the massive discomfort of looking like a total weirdo.

But last night? It was classy. Fedoras abounded, as did vests and ties. I felt like a million dollars, and even though I was nearly the only person there in girl drag I was completely comfortable with that. It felt good to see so many happy costumed queer folk chatting and making new connections and generally taking over the bar we'd booked; all these queers in this blowdried gay male space! It made me so happy. And even though we didn't talk formally about Genderqueer Chicago, it still felt like one of the major underlying layers to the evening. I talked with people about queer barbecues, pronoun choice--I was asked multiple times which pronouns I preferred, and there was a group lean towards y'all as a neutral option--and yes, sometimes even what the group was about and what we hoped to do in the future. We have time and space later for more words and deeper discussions, but as a coming out party this was the bee's knees.

rose-tinted

As I was walking home tonight from having an excellent conversation with a friend, I saw three people standing on the corner and squinting and pointing in my vicinity. I thought maybe they needed some directions, and so I paused and looked at one of the men. He did a double take and said to me, "Aw, it's all right, love, we were just admiring your beauty." I thanked him and laughed, and the girl in the group turned to me and said, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I laughed again and said no, and the first man told me (but not in a creepy way) that his friends were trying to hook him up and asked my name. As they seemed friendly and harmless I shook his hand and introduced myself, and asked them if they needed any directions. The second man in the group told me that he had simply been trying to get them to look at the twilit sky through his blue sunglasses, and offered them to me. I looked and admired the deep indigo, handed the glasses back, crossed the street and went home.
It was a surprisingly relaxed ending to an overall annoying weekend: it's been Pride here in Chicago, and I've been feeling irritable and left out because I had to work the entire time. I write on here so often about how goddamn happy I am, but that level of up tends to lead to the occasional day or two of feeling down and grouchy and generally much less happy. It's inevitable; it would be almost impossible for me to keep up this feeling of joy all the time, and so I accept my down days and wait patiently for them to pass so that I can feel sparkly again. This weekend was particularly rough, though, because I could tell I was headed for a downswing and I was also just so jealous of all of my friends, drinking in the streets and flogging each other on parade floats and dressing up in outrageous costumes.
I'm proud of my current ability to wait out these downswings of mood. When you know that it will pass, it's so much easier to prevent yourself from extending the depression into something that will hurt you for longer. Recognizing the roots of my discontent defuses it and makes it into just a phase to wait through. And so I take time to myself, write angsty journal rants, dress up in cute clothes for the hell of it, make myself smell the flowers at work and just generally accept that life is full of nights that make you want to scream and punch something but that those nights are just that: nights. They pass. And then I look at the dusky sky through a stranger's glasses and laugh my way home to bake a strawberry rhubarb pie to share with my friends.

obligatory, perhaps

Michael Jackson made a relatively minimal impact on my life, but I've always felt sad about what fame and fortune did to him and his music. I'm in no way writing a tribute, but this is a lovely cover from (who else?) Amanda Palmer. If you're lazy, the music starts right around the two-minute mark.