You are not a tree.

I talk about leaving Chicago all the time. I don't know if I ever actually will, but after all these years here, the city has lost a lot of the allure that it had for me in the beginning.

Then I recently saw this quote on facebook (originally shared by Kenny Rogers) and decided I've either got to stop complaining or do something about it. Lots of life decisions to be made in the near-ish future, so we'll see what happens.

Fun City Stuff

I talk A LOT about wanting to leave Chicago. Ever since I hit the decade mark and felt that I had earned my stripes, my excitement for the city has waned. Are the winters worth it? The hour-plus four mile commute? Sure it makes us feel tough and deserving, but for what?

Where would I go? Exactly. I'm still trying to figure that out. I know that I would miss the easy-access culture and always-happening events in the city that I take for granted now. For example: two events this week that I'm very excited about attending!

solarise. (photo by braden nesin/chicagoist)

First, Wine Under Glass at Garfield Park Conservatory. I love wine and I love the conservatory. Win Win! They've also got this really rad light art installation up for the next year called solarise: a sea of all colors. I'm excited to see it in person.

Then tomorrow night I'm going to the Museum of Contemporary art for their new after-hours series, Prime Time. I've talked about the Best Summer Ever, the year my friends and I spent a lot of time at the MCA, including the old after-hours party, First Fridays. This new series will happen less often, but sounds like it will be even more of a spectacle.

And capping off the weekend? Circus Cats.

Fighting for the right to stickers.

I voted, too, but I did not get a sticker.

Yesterday was Election Day across the country, and while I don't usually talk politics, I'm disappointed to hear that my state elected the person I did not vote for for governor.

Moving on to more important issues, when you vote in the city of Chicago, you do not get an "I Voted" sticker. You get this crummy piece of paper instead. This is crazy.

Image from Brandon Wall. That exclamation point does not make us feel better. 

Apparently the Board of Elections stopped handing out stickers twenty years ago because voters would put the stickers on the walls on their way out of the polling place. 

What is this? It's like we're the red-headed stepchild of the US. OHHHH, look at Chicago, they can't seem to handle the responsibility of stickers, so they get pieces of paper that they have to pin on their lapels with safety pins. Safety pins that they have to provide themselves, because if they can't handle stickers, what makes you think they could properly use a sharp object. Maybe give them tape instead. No, wait, they'll just stick that on the walls, too, and it's clear so we can't find it. Paper only. 

Please give us stickers. We will be good. We promise. We will only put them on ourselves and not on walls. (We will even try to remember to remove said sticker from our shirts before placing them in the wash.) Please do not punish us for the missteps of our fathers. 

HEY! Maybe the city could hold a design contest for voter stickers! With all my long-distance friends rubbing their stickers in my facebook, I have seen many clever designs from many different municipalities. It could even take the place of the contest for the car city stickers that the city scrapped! I'm sure they could find some way to monetize that!

Can we petition to add this important issue to the next ballot? VOTE YES FOR STICKERS!

Ten Years

I moved to Chicago ten years ago today. Groundhog Day 2004. I was 23 years old. 23! An age where you jump without looking and worry about how you're going to land on your way down. Maybe I work best under pressure. Or maybe I was just young, hopeful and naive.

I've had three real boyfriends, two full time jobs, three part time ones, six apartments, two writing gigs, 9 Lollapaloozas and two mayors. I went through some rough times along the way, as any person would over a decade, but I also made some really great memories and great friends, and found the guy that I hope to make the rest of life’s big memories with.

When I moved here from Missouri, my parents wondered aloud why I went north, given that I hate cold weather, but I had my sights set on the big city. I was enamored by any place where you could get everywhere by subway and didn’t need a car. Well, I haven’t owned a car in more than nine years, but I have developed a special kind of detestation for the Chicago Transit Authority. I've also lived through blizzasters, snowpocalypses, thundersnow, snowbrawls and built up an arsenal of winter gear. And you know what, I love it. If it’s going to snow, be record breaking amounts of snow. If it’s going to be cold, let it be so crazy cold that it gets a villainous name like Polar Vortex. I hate that it hurts to go outside, I hate that my fingers go numb, and I get real tired of the bundling up come March, but winters here take hearty folks and create a sense of community like no other.*

So go ahead and visit in the summer months and enjoy the music festivals, street fests, food fests, parks, restaurants, museums, friendly confines, thing we “affectionately call Bean” and beaches that have water on one side and a famous city skyline on the other, but if you want to know what it’s like to really appreciate those things, you’ve gotta spend all four seasons here.

I’ve looked forward to this milestone because somehow I decided that’s the point that get to call myself a real Chicagoan. And how will I commemorate this decadeversary? By doing the one Chicago thing that I somehow managed to miss out on for ten years: going to the top of the Sears** Tower!

*I’ll admit that this winter in particular has been especially challenging, and you know how I know that? Because I’ve been here for ten of them.

**Never Willis.

I still can't feel my toes.

Full on Winter Blues Anger has set in, and while it hasn’t been especially freezing for the last couple weeks (we were lucky to have a mid-Jan heat wave of upper 30’s there over the weekend…) the longevity does its job and here we sit every late Jan into Feb wondering why we still live here ( I’m speaking for the collective Chicagoian here). Today started off especially rough. I hate the mornings I have a bad commute because it sets the tone for the rest of the day: anger and rage.

Every morning I have a choice: take the bus to the train, which is a shorter walk from my house, but takes slightly longer to get to work, and I have to be outside to transfer to the train; or take two trains, which is a longer walk (ie, longer time spent outside) and is technically longer (I pass my actual destination to transfer in the loop to my second train), but is actually a few minutes quicker than the bus route, and my transfer point is underground. One downside of the train is that it is ALWAYS crowded—for those that don’t live in the city, I’m talking pressed up against strangers so close that you feel they should have bought you dinner, or at least a drink first. Sometimes on the bus route, I can get a seat, but I emphasize sometimes. Bus Tracker has been a blessing to our lives, but sometimes, it just isn’t accurate and, like today, I end up standing out in the cold much longer than anticipated, and know that since it has been so long since the last bus, I’m going to be pressed up against the windshield for most of my ride.

So how do I deal? Loud, up-tempo music. I sometimes like to listen to a podcast, a sort of conversational story to distract me, but sometimes the train will be so loud I can’t hear parts of sentences, or I’m being leaned on in a way that I can’t even passively concentrate on what is being said (which is why it is so important to find a solution to my headphone shock problem—silence in these situations is much worse). So I turn to the music. Today I relied on shuffle; some songs that got me through were: Winter Gloves’ "Let Me Drive," The Ting Tings’ "Impacilla Carpisung," Housse De Rackett’s "Oh Yeah!," Prairie Cartel’s "Suitcase Pimp," and Jane’s Addiction’s "True Nature." By the time I got to the end of that list, my headphones were turned up as loud as they go…

How do you get through a crappy commute?

(Image from Pantagrapher via Chicagoist, 2007)