Online Dating Revisited

So I joined an online dating website (no, I’m not telling you which one).  I forgot to cancel my subscription within the first 3 days (as was my plan), so my new plan is to make the most of the next 3 months.  Which means either a) great dates for me or b) terrible dates for me that make great blog stories.  I will not be retelling details of any dates who seem like genuinely nice, honest people… I’m not a jerk.  But if they are anything like good ol’ Derek from my last foray into online dating, I will let you know.

So far, just in scanning profiles, I wish I could give guys some tips on how to not sound creepy or douche-y:

1) There are several questions for which “I’ll tell you later” is an acceptable answer: Income, Faith, what college you went to… NOT “Do you have kids?”  Really?  Really dude, you’ll tell me later?  That means that you almost certainly have children and I’m going to assume the worst about them/you:  “Yes, I have 16 children”, or “Yes, I have 2 children and they like poking people with pins”, or “Yes, I have children.  And a wife”, or “Yes, I have kids.  Every Thursday night with a little mint jelly”, or “Yes I have children, but I sell them off when they reach 6 weeks”.  I think I’ll just pass.

2)  I’m going to be honest… I know that you can’t help who you’re attracted to.  However, when you’re a white dude who has no preference for ANY of your ideal woman’s characteristics (height, body type, hair color, eye color, politics, faith, education, etc), except that she be white… I’m gonna go ahead and assume that you are a big ol’ racist.  It might not be fair of me, but there you go.  I guess if you are looking for other racists, that’s a good way to let ‘em know.

3)  Seriously, that one dude, did you really say that redheads are okay as long as we’re “not too feisty”?!!?  Ugh.

4)  Dudes.  Dudes.  For the love of Pete, don’t put anything about being my future husband, Mr. Right, or any other such thing in your user name.  Be normal and use some variation on your name or nickname like everyone else.

I got an email this past weekend from a dude who used the awesomely non-specific line, “something in your profile caught my eye”.  Really?  Really 44-year-old dude, did it?  It obviously wasn’t the FIRST LINE that states 38 is pretty much the highest age I’m looking for.

The next 3 months could be interesting… or horrifying enough for me to swear off dating again.  I guess we’ll see.

Open Letter to Riders of the CTA – part 2

My dearest fellow public transit travelers,

Last year, I sent you a letter (Open Letter to Riders of the CTA) and I’ve recently come to the conclusion that a follow-up is necessary.  It hurts me that you just seem unable to learn basic rules of commuting and human decency, but I’m committed to helping you make your way in this world with as little inconvenience to me as possible.

Picking up where I left off:

10.  There is absolutely no reason – NONE – for you to sit in the middle seat of an empty 3-seat bench.  Does the “no touching unless absolutely necessary” rule really need to be spelled out for you?  This infraction is the public transit equivalent of one of those various “urinal rules” I’ve heard guys have.  You don’t want to be that person, do you?  The creep in the middle seat who is either going to force people to touch them, or force people to stand because they’re so freaked out by your seat choice?  I didn’t think so.  Do the responsible thing and move over one way or the other. 

11.  Your toddler is adorable, he really is.  Who doesn’t love watching a small child take those unsteady steps, with their tiny hand clutching yours for dear life?  I’ll tell you who: the person behind them on the subway stairs during rush hour.  Pick your kid up!  For her safety, for mine, for yours.   Teach him how to walk up the stairs and nurture her independent spirit someplace safer and more out of the way.  Hell, unsupervised on some metal bleachers in the middle of winter would probably be safer than up from the Chicago Red Line stop at 5:20 pm.

12.  I get it – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is just the most AMAZING book you’ve ever read.  You just can’t put it down… I’ve read books like that, where I squeeze in a few chapters on my commute or during my lunch break.  But you know what I never did?  Walk through a subway stop at rush hour while reading it.  Why?  Because that’s stupid.  It makes me want to walk into you on purpose and then blame you for it. 

13.  Do we need to have lessons on how to go through a turnstile?  I wish I could just blame the tourists for this, but it’s well past summer and I know a lot of you I see every day have to walk through these things on a regular basis, so there is really no excuse for not knowing how it works.  First of all, if you are scared of the ones that look like they could slice and dice you, I understand.  Go through one of the regular gates (Psst!  They work both ways!).  But maybe it would help if you thought about this like merging on the highway: You need to enter the turnstile and keep it going at the same speed it was when you got in.  That means NO SLOWING IT DOWN to a crawl.  Or waiting for it to make 3.5 empty revolutions before you get up the nerve to jump in.  Be ready to hop into the first available space or stop pushing your way to the front of the line.  And don’t even get me started on the lazy bastards who refuse to do any of the pushing themselves, and let the next person in line do all the work.  One of the days, I’m not going to.   But not during rush hour, because I’m not the kind of asshole who holds up an entire line of people who just want to go home.

14.  I’m going to take what might be an unpopular position here:  Oranges, unless you have pre-peeled and separated the segments prior to your commute, are an entirely inappropriate food to be eating while squeezed into the seat next to me on an overcrowded bus.  If I get orange juice squirted in my eye because of your inattentive peeling, I’m going to be very cranky.

15.  Finally, because it cannot be said enough times, even if you’ve gone back to read the original letter I linked to above, MOVE. ALL. THE. WAY. TO. THE. BACK. OF. THE. BUS.

Thanks guys.  I have faith that eventually you’ll catch on

xo,

Mairin

Oh the shame…

When I was in kindergarten (before the homeschool years), Thursdays were music days for us and the preschoolers.  We had a music teacher (or just some woman who could play the piano well enough to impress a bunch of 3- to 5-year-olds) come in and play the piano and lead us in song.  One of those songs was something about peanut butter and we had to snap our fingers when we got to the bit about “crunchy peanut butter”.

Friends, I could not snap my fingers.  Oh the secret shame of a 5-year-old!  That song is actually burned in my brain because I remember trying desperately to mimic my classmates while praying that they could not tell that my fingers made no sound at all.  My older sister and brother tried to teach me at home, in preparation for music day every week (we sang that song a lot), but it felt like a lost cause.  I was doomed to be the girl who couldn’t snap her fingers for the rest of her life.  It was my cross to bear.

I’m happy to report that, years later (no joke, I was probably around 11) I did finally learn to snap my fingers.  But tonight I’m going to share with you a couple other things that nearly everyone else I know picked up real easily and I could simply never do.

Swim
Yup.  Can’t swim.  My parents enrolled us in swim lessons at a local university (the only place with a semi-public pool)… it was one of those set-ups where your level was the name of a fish: polliwog, guppy, minnow, etc… I never graduated from polliwog.    My brothers surpassed me easily, leaping off the diving board and swimming out in the deep end, while my teachers were getting more and more frustrated with my lack of buoyancy.  That was what held me back – an inability to float.  I’d lay on my back, with the instructor holding me up… I’d be totally relaxed, totally zen.  And then she’d take her hands away and…. glub glub glub.  I’d sink like a stone and have to be hauled, flailing, out of the water.  After being held back 3 times in a row, I begged off swim lessons and my parents agreed.  I can doggie paddle enough that I’m certain if I get knocked into the river or something one day, I’ll be able to make it to something solid to hold onto.

I actually spent a while dating a guy who had been a really serious swimmer most of his life, breaking national records and whatnot.  He always offered to teach me, and I always found a reason to put it off.  I felt like seeing me panic and thrash about once my head went under the water would not be good for our relationship.

Whistle
No joke, I can’t whistle.  When I attempt it, some sound comes out, but calling it a whistle would be mighty generous delusional.  And it’s weird, but I make no noise at all when exhaling, but am able to make more whistle-like sounds when inhaling.   (Incidentally, there was song that involved whistling in kindergarten too.  It was terrible).  Is there a way that someone can learn how to whistle?  Or is that something that comes naturally to people?  How do I learn this elusive skill?

I feel like sharing 2 of my inadequacies with you is probably enough for one night.  If you want to share anything that you don’t know how to do, I promise you’ll hear no judgment from me

BEEP

My smoke detector is extremely sensitive.  If even the teeniest bit of something drips in my oven, it sets it off.  I suppose this is good, since it decreases the odds that I will someday burn up in my sleep from an apartment fire, but it gets really annoying when I cook.  Especially since I do have a tendency to wander away from the kitchen to do other things while my dinner is burning cooking.

So one day, shortly after I moved in (okay, that’s a lie… it was almost a year.  I’m trying to make myself look better here), my smoke detector battery got low and the thing started beeping.  You know that beep.  It’s SO annoying.  And since I knew that the sound carried (my neighbor’s needed its battery changed a couple months prior.  I heard every beep for 2 days), I wanted to change the battery right away before I went to work, so it wouldn’t annoy people.  Because that’s what kind of neighbor I am.  I didn’t have time to go buy a new battery, so I grabbed one out of the kitchen drawer that I knew still had some juice in it.  I stuck it in and went on my merry way.

When I got home, I heard the tell-tale beep as I was about to unlock my door.  Apparently that battery had less juice in it than I thought.  I turned right around and ran to the grocery store near my house, where I picked up the cheapest 9V battery they had.  At a grocery store, that’s about $24.

I returned home, determined to be a responsible renter and not let the building burn down with no warning, and replaced the battery.  Hooray!  Responsible Adult Mairin is here to stay!

Two minutes went by…

WHAT?!?  I knew that battery was good!  Maybe I didn’t put it in right.  So I climbed back up on the chair, removed the battery, waited a second, then put it back in.

SHIT!  Now I was really getting annoyed.  My smoke detector is one of the old-school ones, where the part that beeps is the part screwed the wall.  I got a screwdriver, removed it from the wall and sat down on my kitchen floor to “fix” it.

I unscrewed as much as I could unscrew to see if something was loose and not touching the battery.  And then it happened.

Now I knew (knew!) that there was NO WAY that the sound I was hearing could possibly be coming from the spot where the smoke detector had previously been screwed to the wall.  And yet, that’s what I was hearing.

HOW ARE YOU BEEPING?!!?

I just froze.  I had no idea how to handle this.  My brain couldn’t make sense of what was happening and therefore decided it wouldn’t even try.  I stood there like a fool for a couple more minutes.

Wait.  IS it coming from that spot on the wall?  Is there anything else that could be beeping?

Whatthe?!?

Apparently I have TWO smoke detectors!  In my defense, this second one is in the shadows, blends in with the wall, and is above my not-very-high line of sight.  However, it’s also right in front of the door when you walk in.

I should probably be more embarrassed about not seeing it, but I’m so glad I wasn’t hallucinating, I don’t even care.

Grownup Sicky

This week, I got sick.  And, living by myself like a grown-up, it means I had to take care of myself.  Since many of you are aware of how well I take care of myself when I am healthy, I’m sure you know how great this went.

I try really hard not to whine when I’m sick because whining is always annoying, but it’s seriously one of my least favorite parts of being an adult (along with paying rent every damn month, but what’re you gonna do?).  Because when you’re an adult, living on your own, you have to take care of your own self when you’re sick.

Now, I love living by myself.  I really do.  But the times it really, really sucks is when you can’t text your roommate and ask him/her to pick you up some tea and a couple cans of soup on their way home from work.  You have to pull it together to get your own soup and tea and Kleenexes.  And I will freely admit that while I get these things done, I hate doing them.  HATE.

I should’ve seen it coming.  I was scheduled to work an overnight shift (from which I can’t call off unless I can find someone else to work for me), the weather forecast was for a nearly perfect fall day, and I only had two bags of Echinacea tea left.  It was like the perfect storm of events conspiring to make me feel even lousier.

Day 1:
Wake up with sore throat, coughing, and so much tired.  Set alarm for later to call in to work and go back to sleep.

Wake up feeling and sounding like shit.  Call in to work.  Go back to sleep

Wake up a few hours later to demon cat running laps in the kitchen.  Shit.  She’s probably hungry and annoyed that breakfast is 5 hours later than usual.  Better get up to feed the little princess.  Punk.

Check tea supply.  Awesome.  Two bags.  <whine> I just wanna go to back to bed! </whine>

Force self into shower and into clothes suitable for being in public.  The best I can muster are workout clothes.  Go to grocery around the corner, which, of course, doesn’t carry the tea I need.

Get on bus to further away grocery.   I really just want to be in my jammies and lying on the couch, begging my new cat (the punk) to come cuddle on the blanket with me.  Why does life hate me?!!? 

Enter drama.

<whine>  I’m miserable.  I want to be warm and cozy and instead I’m now walking a mile home with 3 boxes of tea.  And soymilk, because I remembered that I was almost out when I was at the store.  Everyone else is out enjoying the beautiful weather and I’ve decided I have strep.  Or tonsillitis (minus the tonsils, whoops).  Or meningitis.  OMG can I touch my chin to my chest?!!!?  Whew!  I’m good.  It’s not meningitis (I have no idea what that little test means.  All I know is that’s what my mom would have us do when our glands were really swollen).  It’s probably bronchitis.  Or the plague.  Shit. I totally have the plague.

You know what I really want to do when I’m sick?  I want to take a hot shower, and put my pajamas back on.  I want to sit on my couch, with my cozy fleece blanket on me, cuddling with my adorable kitty.   I want someone to bring me tea and make me soup, and then sit under the blanket with me and watch zombie movies and terrible natural disaster movies (Volcanoes in LA!  Night of the Tornadoes!  The cheesier, the better) and play video games with me.  </whine>

Accept that being a responsible adult blows.

Text every sub at overnight job and ask if they can take my shifts.  No one can.

Spend rest of day pumping myself full of Echinacea and Vitamin C, nap, and then head off to overnight job.

Survive, barely, and disinfect entire workspace before leaving in the morning.  Because that’s what kind of awesome coworker I am.  Text in sick to day job, since losing the ability to speak overnight, despite copious amounts of tea and cough drops.

Day 2:
Sleep on the bus on the way home.  Gradually become more and more sick of being sick… spiral of self-pity begins….

Put jammies on and watch alien movies on Netflix.  Drink a glass of juice.  Start brewing tea.  Decide to spend rest of life wearing leggings and oversized t-shirts because nothing is more comfortable.

Fall asleep on couch while silently cursing formerly stray kitty’s trust issues and wishing she’d just cuddle instead of sitting just out of reach staring at me.

Wake up hungry and throat-hurty.  Dump out cold cup of tea that’s still brewing and start heating more water.  Make lentil soup.  Take multivitamins because I’m really going to start being healthy now, I swear!

Drink more tea and more juice.  Have now exceeded 1000% of daily recommended value Vitamin C.  Take THAT, you virus bastard!

Watch first quarter of Season 1 of Party Down.  This show was made for people who have to stay home sick.

Sick of soup.  Make beans and rice, adding lots of onions and salsa because that can only be good, right?

Fall asleep on couch during The Big Bang Theory.

Drink more tea.

Force myself to post something on Facebook that’s not about the weird cat antics going on around me, even though I’ve barely had any contact with humans in the past 24 hours.

Have conversation with cat, since no one else would be able to understand scratchy, mumbly words.

Shit.  I’m having a conversation with the cat.

Do the dishes, even though I’m dying, because I’m an effing grownup, yo.

Go to bed.

Day 3
Wake up to the sound of bricks falling outside my window (WTF?!!?) just in time to text my ride and tell her not to pick me up.  Am too tired to check on possible building demolition.  Go back to sleep.

Wake 40 minutes later.  Text in to work due to inability to speak above a whisper upon waking.  Bricks are still being knocked around.  Some level of concern, but feel no unusual drafts, so go back to sleep.

Finally wake for real.  Construction seems to be happening across the gangway.

Feed the tiny demon that’s been running windsprints in my apartment all night long.

Take a shower and force self into regular clothes.

Consider today a victory already since it involves wearing real pants.

Realize I probably should take my temperature.  Slight fever.  Hm.  First time that’s happened in a years.  I’m probably dying.

Go to store to buy more Kleenex.  And oranges because Vitamin C.  Upon leaving apartment, discover that sidewalk in front of building is surrounded in caution tape.  Almost get hit by an I-beam while trying to exit the building.  Decide walking in the street is safer than the 4 feet to outside the caution tape.

Return from store.  Enter building from back.  Seems like the landlord just picked up 3 random dudes on the street and possibly paid them in beer to do major construction on the building.  Sounds about right.

Feel like it’s been about 6 years since meaningful human contact.

Watch terrible movie about a new Ice Age.  “Day After Tomorrow” this was not.

Take a nap.

Listen to 5 Gotye songs on repeat.  It’s probably really annoying the “workers” 4 feet outside my window, but I don’t particularly care.

Look for cat.  Where the hell does she go?

Keep turning on electric kettle and then forgetting about it.  Really wishing for some tea.

Practice talking to see if I still can.

I can’t. 

Finally remember to make tea.

Write blog post about being sick (whoa.  Meta, yo)

 

Fin.

 

(yes, I’m delirious.  I hate being sick.  I need human contact!  I need to drink something that’s not tea and doesn’t have 200% of my recommended value Vitamin C in it!)

Mairin’s Grown-Up Cookbook

I’ve decided to write a cookbook.  I know what you’re thinking: “But Mairin, you’re terrible at improvising, extremely absent-minded, and tend to burn/light things on fire”.  Whatever, doubters.  This cookbook is going to be geared toward people like me and make me totally rich.

Cooking for the Absent-Minded and Cheap

Chapter One: How to prepare for cooking
1. Remove smoke detector and place under couch cushion.  A chair will also do.
2. Get all your ingredients together first.  Be sure to read the labels.  Ginger and garlic powder can look similar at first glance, but they are not even close to be okay substitutes for one another.
3. Pour yourself a glass of wine.  It’s going to make all this a lot easier.

Chapter Two: First Aid
It’s imperative that you have a handle on basic burn and cut treatments before you begin cooking, especially if you plan on doing anything with fire or knives.  Please note that it is possible to cut yourself without using knives, and microwaves can light things on fire too.  To avoid most burns, some of my friends and I like to use the following statement to remind ourselves to be careful: “Things that come out of ovens are hot”.  Repeat that to yourself through the cooking process.

Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s get down to cooking.

Chapter Three: Cheese
Cheese makes everything more delicious.  You should add it to everything you can… and it works for every meal, too!

Chapter Four: Onions and Garlic
If you are sautéing anything at all (and I use the term “sauté” loosely to mean “cooking anything that isn’t breakfast-related in a frying pan”), you should start with olive oil, onions, and garlic.  This is a basic rule that should pretty much always be followed.

Chapter Five: Cereal
Cereal is acceptable for every meal.  Some cereals are actually more suited for lunch or dinner than for breakfast.  Buy accordingly.  Have several kinds of cereal in your cabinet at all times… unless you make your own granola, ’cause that stuff’s delicious and there is no competition.  Remember though, this is a rare food that is not improved by the addition of cheese.

Chapter Six: Seasoning
I don’t know how to season.  You’re pretty much on your own here, unless you want to talk about the wonders of basil, pepper, and garlic.

Chapter Seven: Baking
Sharing baked goods is an excellent way to make friends at work and is way easier than regular cooking.  It makes your whole house smell delicious and is also a nice way to warm the place up in winter, in case you are too cheap to turn up the heat.

Well, that about wraps it up for now.  If you’ll excuse me, I sliced a chunk of my thumb off while cutting up an onion this evening and it’s kind of starting to hurt.  Don’t forget to buy my cookbook when it comes out and help me become a millionaire!

My Life Is Like a Romantic Comedy…. Except for the romance part. Really, it’s just mostly awkward.

Disclaimer: unless someone is truly a d-bag, or if there’s really no chance I’m ever going to see or talk to them again, I will try my hardest to not cast anyone but myself in anything but a positive (or possibly neutral)  light.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent.  And the d-bags.  Because I’m not a total asshole.

Once upon a time, a small-town girl moved to the big city to make a new life for herself.  Wait, I’ve seen this before… don’t her quirky ways win over her worldly, pensive, and handsome neighbor/dog walker/barista/fellow commuter? 

HAHAHAH!  No.  Maybe that happens if you have a stylist so you don’t constantly look homeless and/or unemployed, and someone to write lines for you so you don’t say nerdy or uncomfortable things… I enjoy the benefit of none of those.

I’ve  already mentioned my most awesome online dating adventure ever (http://grownuplivin.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/worst-first-date/) with “Derek” the almost-40-year-old, former full-time pot dealer who lived with his mom and older brother two hours from Chicago…. that’s the kind of guy it takes for me to actually come out looking like the cooler one.

We’ll come back to my brief foray into online dating in a bit.  For now, let’s take a look at a few examples from Mairin’s Cluelessness: A Brief History.

High School (or: the times I’m unwittingly an asshole): We had this thing called TDT in high school – “Teacher’s Discretionary Time” – which was essentially 20 random minutes around 4th period that they used to balance out the lunch timing.  Junior year, I was lucky enough to end up in the Psych class that was mostly seniors, so our teacher didn’t care what we did as long as we weren’t loud.  Two guys, Adam and Steve, came up to me while we were all just hanging out one day.  I was probably studying, because that’s how cool I was:
Adam: Hey Mairin, we were just wondering what you thought of Jacob
(Note: Jacob is standing approximately ten feet away watching this exchange intently)
Mairin: Ummmmm
(It should also be noted that seated right next to me, and listening in with interest, is Pat, a guy I have the major hots for)
Steve: He’s kind of waiting for an answer
Mairin:  I don’t think much of him
(Pro Tip, boys and girls.  WORD ORDER MATTERS)
Adam and Steve: BURN!!!!  (Or the 1997 version of “BURN!!!! Whatever that was.)
(Jacob is still watching.  The poor dude.)
Mairin:  NONONONO!  I mean, I don’t think of him much (Mairin.  This is not helping.  Sooo… it’s not that you dislike him, but that he’s invisible?  Close your mouth and stop talking.  Forever.)
Steve:  So… you’re not gonna go out with him?
Mairin: (there’s no hole for you to crawl into, kiddo.  You’re going to have to answer)  Um.  No.  Sorry.
At this time, Adam and Steve walk back over to Jacob and in the sensitive way that only 17 -year-old boys can do, break the news to him.   He just lowered his head and walked away.  I’m a terrible human being.

There’s also the time I got asked to Prom.  But didn’t realize that was happening, so just appeared to brush the dude off.  My friend explained it to me later.  I was shy and awkward and sorta weird back then (hahaha, “back then”)…. and it simply didn’t occur to me that anyone would ask me out.  So I either didn’t accept that was happening, or was so shocked I could only stammer out sentence fragments or loose collections of words in the wrong order.

College:
I studied in college… and did not go out on one date.  Yeah, that’s right.  Not. One.  I spent a lot of time working on mathematical theory.  Or composing late at night in the music lab.  I did join some clubs after I had to quit track due to injuries:  I was in the Mathematics Club (if you think high school math club kids are dorky, you REALLY need to meet the college ones!) which was led by my academic advisor/linear algebra professor, and was an inaugural member of the Atlatl Club, started by my archeology professor.  I know, I know, there’s nothing hotter than a mathematical-theory-loving girl who knows how to throw (and make!) a Paleolithic hunting spear, so it’s pretty surprising that I stayed single all through college, but there it is.

The Working World:
We had this sorta cute college intern once when I was a mental health case manager… Burt.  He spent a lot of time doing visits with me (he went into the field with all of us, but I feel like I got him most often in his last week).  On his very last day we had the following exchange in our office, after having been out all day driving around the city.
Burt:  So, do you think the Shrek sequel is something you’d like to see?
(The Shrek Sequel, you guys)
Mairin:  Oh, probably, I kind of want to.
Burt: Yeah, I’d really like to go see it too.
(Awkward, 3-minute pause.  Seriously.  EXCEPT, I didn’t know it was awkward… I rarely know it’s awkward.)
Mairin:  Well, I hope you get a chance to see it!
(and then I went on my way finishing up paperwork.  Burt left forever about 5 minutes later.  I probably said goodbye.  I hope I was normal enough for that, at least)
Coworkers (who had been witness to this entire exchange):  WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN IDIOT?!!?  (or something similar).

Didn’t see it.  At all.  In my defense, I think he should’ve just asked me to the movie, if that’s what was going on there…. I just thought he really liked Shrek.  WHAT?  That could happen.  Sigh.  I couldn’t even be normal enough to say, “Maybe you should wait 20 minutes until you’re not an intern at my work anymore, and then ask me again”.  And then I’d be all charming… you know, how people do.

And then there’s the online dating.  Which took place when I was re-reading my copy of “Chaos: Making a New Science” (which is fascinating, by the way, and you should totally read it).  So I would get to my meeting places early, after I let the guys know I’d be the redhead already seated, reading a book about Chaos Theory.  Yeah.  Yeaaaaah.  Why I’m still single remains a complete and utter mystery to me. 

While I was doing the online dating, I was an intern, working in an office with only two other coworkers.  They were all about this process, from helping to decide who I should meet, to critiquing my clothing choices (I maintain that jeans and a nice shirt are PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE for a mid-week, after-work, casual dinner, first date, especially if my work is such that I am allowed to wear jeans every day.  Hell, I even wore shoes that weren’t sneakers.  Maybe.  I at least thought about it), to giving me options for restaurants that would make me look in-the-know (I was an intern.  I had zero dollars and couldn’t afford to go anywhere, so I had no suggestions).  “Finding Mairin a date and helping her pass as a less-nerdy version of herself” became a group project…. I think they were more into than I was actually.  Which makes sense, because they didn’t have to actually spend time talking with these dudes.     I’ve since given up on online dating…

One of those online dates did turn into a relationship for a couple of years… which leads me into my current “ripe-for-a-romantic-comedy-happy-ending” situation:  I finished grad school, got a decent job in the Loop, and moved out of the apartment I shared with a roommate.  I wanted to live on my own, closer to work and closer to the expressway so my suburban boyfriend could come and visit me more easily.  And then my job broke up with me.  Three months later, my boyfriend broke up with me.  A month-and-a-half later, I got a new job six blocks from my old apartment and now commute over an hour each way on public transit to get there.  Also?  The handsome, employed-appearing guy who lived in the apartment behind me moved out shortly after my relationship ended and 6 22-year-old hipster kids moved in.  What. The. Hell. Universe?   (note: I’m not totally hating on all aspects of hipster-dom.  I can have hipster tendencies myself.  But these kids were such hipsters, it was as if hipsters were smugly dressing and acting as hipsters to be ironic).   Seriously.  What the hell.

So, aside from one failed, awkward “surprise” set-up at a party (P – I love you, I really do.  And the gesture/effort was more than I could ask of a friend), that’s where I am now.  The Universe appears to conspire against me at times…. And when it’s not, I do a pretty good job of effing it all up myself.   If someone from Hollywood were writing my life, I’d meet my soulmate on the bus, when we both ask people to keep moving all the way to the back at the same time.  Or at the grocery store, both buying an odd mixture of health food and beer.  Or wandering the empty streets of downtown when I’m on my “lunch break” for my second job at 5 am.  Ok, maybe not that last one.  That could be sorta creepy.

Until then, I’ll be the redhead at the corner table, reading “After Capitalism”.  That’s sure to be great hook!

PRIDE

This post has been a while coming… it’s take some time to marinate, for me to figure out how I wanted to write this.  Most of my posts here are funny…  because my life is kind of funny and I need to remind myself sometimes that I’m really not a big deal and most people don’t really care about my VERY SERIOUS THOUGHTS.  Because people are grown-ups and have their own thoughts….

But I think I’m going the serious route with this one.  I think I have to.

I moved to the city about 5 years ago and every year since, I’ve been either working or out of town for the Pride Parade.  This year, I finally got to go… and not only did I get to go, but I got to walk in it with my Alderman and other volunteers.  WHich is awesome because 1) my alderman is the kind of politician that I wish I could be, if I could be a politician (which I am pretty sure I couldn’t) and 2) because I hate hate HATE huge crowds.  They make me really anxious and I last about 20 minutes before I start wanting to whine and go home.  Actually being in the parade eliminates a lot of those crowd issues.

So we walked, however many miles it is, past hundreds of thousands of people.  People in various stages of dress.  Smiling people.  Screaming people.  Kissing people.  Hugging people.  Laughing people.   I threw beads (because that’s what the people want, apparently), making sure to hand one strand to every kid I saw along the way (kids are cute and yay parents for bringing your kids!), gave out a few hugs, and in general marveled at the mass of humanity on Chicago’s streets and sidewalks.

There were haters.  Of course there were haters.  Toward the end of the route, they were set up with huge signs and I thought it odd that they weren’t saying anything.  You know how much the haters love to tell you you’re a sinner.   And when I ran up to get a hug from a girl holding a “Free Hugs” sign, I was close enough to actually hear the haters… what they were saying isn’t important.  It never is, because they’re wrong.  What was important was the crowd of people surrounding them, holding signs with words of love instead of hate written on them were cheering so loudly that they drowned the haters’ megaphone out.  Take that, assholes.  Love wins today.

The Things We Do for Money

After I waxed nostalgic about my fishing lake job yesterday, I started thinking about all pre-”real job” careers we all have.

Entertainment Company
Between the ages of 13 and 18, I worked for a neighbor who owned an entertainment company.  We dressed up as costumed characters from children’s shows  and worked kids’ birthday parties, parades, carnivals, and company parties.  It was terrible, but the hourly rate we got paid was awesome…. no matter that we only worked a few hours a month.  In those 5 years I was:  a Rugrat (ugh), “The Purple Dinosaur” (apparently “Barney” is copywrited.  Man, I got punched a lot in that costume), the Easter Bunny, Winnie the Pooh, Minnie Mouse (as the only teenage girl working for this dude, I was the only one who fit in the costume.  I got in trouble once at a carnival when I was about 16 or 17, because – while in costume – I was spending my time flirting with some firemen instead of taking pictures with snotty and screaming little kids), Baby Bop (Barney’s friend), and the yellow Power Ranger (one time, at a company picnic, I actually had to have a security escort because of the gangs of junior high age kids who wanted to see me “fight” and would therefore try to karate kick me.  Apparently, power rangers fighting back against the kids is discouraged).  That job was a nightmare.  But no one else around us was hiring kids under 16.

Burger King
After I decided I wanted more reliable work than being a Power Ranger, the only two options in my town for people under the age of 18 were fast food or housekeeping in the hotel next to the truck stop.  My parents nixed the hotel idea, so I was stuck with Burger King.  It was terrible.

IT Maintenance
For 4 summers, I worked for my dad setting up computer labs in a school and providing tech maintenance.  The first summer, I worked nights after my shift in the Burger King was over.  the next two summers, I worked during other jobs.  The last summer, I worked full-time.  All those summers I was the only girl working, and also the only one small enough to fit up in the ceiling to pull cable.  The worst time was when I spent over an hour crouching and balancing on thin metal strips, with a bandana over my face to fend off insulation and dust.  When I finally got down, I just laid on my back on the floor while my muscles spasmed out of control for over ten minutes.

The Embroidery Factory
At the same time I was working for my dad, I was also working at a small factory, bent over embroidery machines all day before I spent 5 hours at night on ladders and stretching into the ceiling.  That was the year my lower back started hurting all the time….

The Forest Preserve
Also worked here at the same time as the IT job.  It was lovely.

College Jobs
Dishwasher/Caf Worker
Track & Field Manager
German office helper
Health/Physical Ed office assistant
Babysitter (okay, this one wasn’t through the school, but I emailed all the profs I knew who had kids and begged them to hire me when I stopped being able to afford to do my laundry).

What’s the most random job you’ve ever had?

Early Morning

In the summer of 2001, one of my jobs when I was home from college was working for the local forest preserve at a fishing lake in my county.  There were two shifts, opening and closing… and since they overlapped for only two hours, you ended up working 6 hours by yourself.

Generally, I’m not a morning person.  I’m not super sunshiney or chipper.  I’ll communicate before 7 am if I have to… but I prefer not to have to.  But friends, I tell you, I loved that opening shift at the lake.  The concession/bait/boat rental stand – where I worked - opened at 6, so you had to get there by 5:30 to unlock everything, start the coffee for the early fishermen (it was all men at that time of day), put out the bait, get the window opened, etc.  There was a dedicated group of guys who would be there every morning waiting patiently for the forest preserve employee to open the gates, ready to get in their hour or so of fishing before work.  And if there was someone new that day who expressed impatience with the 30 minutes it took to get everything opened, they would step in and set that guy straight so I wouldn’t have to.  And if they felt I was rushing myself at all, they’d tell me to take my time.  Early morning fishing is not supposed to be about rushing, you know.

After that initial group of men, no one else would come up for at least an hour or so.  The stand smelled of coffee, the sawdust we used to pack mealworms, and the minnow tanks; it was almost totally silent except for the birds waking up, the hum of those tanks, and the occasional voice drifting across the lake toward me.  Even in August, the air was so cool I would have to wear a sweatshirt those first couple hours.

There are times when I really miss that job.  I miss the simplicity of renting boats and writing fishing licenses, of packing bait and handing out life jackets, of hauling the boats back up onto the shore at the end of the day and driving  on the back roads while my windows down and radio blaring.  I miss grossing little kids out by the fact that catfish blood bait was kept in a fridge just like their Gatorade was.  I miss the junior high boys who came to fish and, once they found out I was from the same small town they were, would stand around and talk to me about how tough the local high school could be sometimes for kids from our town. 

There was no pressure then.   I was working to pay for school, which seemed stressful at the time, but in retrospect is a lot less stressful than working to pay my rent and my electric bill.  My job was to sell things, to answer questions, and to chat with people and make them feel comfortable coming to the lake…. and get them to come back again.  Getting ready in the morning involved rolling out of bed, brushing my teeth, and pulling on my jeans and forest preserve polo shirt.  No point in showering before work when you’re going to end up smelling like bait and fish anyway, right?  (side note: until I renewed my driver’s license last year, it had a picture on it that had been taken right after my shift at the lake.  I was wearing my forest preserve sweatshirt and every time I looked at that picture, I knew I smelled like fish that day).

It’s hard to get that early morning feeling here in the city… but sometimes I get a similar one when I walk around on my second job’s “lunch break”, between 5 and 6 in the morning.  There aren’t as many birds, and it doesn’t usually smell like bait, but there’s that same sense of newness in the day.  When the predominant sound is delivery trucks being unloaded, and there are no crowds yet on the sidewalk, and even Michigan Ave feels a little bit peaceful.  When I can still take a deep breath without feeling stifled, the air is clear and clean feeling, and while the sky is light, the sun isn’t up far enough to be seen. 

There aren’t a lot of easily accessible wide open spaces in the Big City, but at 5 am - for a few brief minutes - I can regain a little bit of the calm, the anticipation of the day to come, the newness from those early mornings at the lake.