No Makeup Saturday

Tags

alex trebec, beauty, entertainment, fashion, female, friends, hair, life, makeup, style, women

I wish it were Monday. No make-up Monday has such a ring to it. And Mondays are a nice excuse for anything. You know, people have heart attacks on Mondays more than any other day. Alex Trebec knows this for sure.

The point is, today’s a day to get ready the regular way. Jeans-n-boots, my favorite t shirt, with pencil sketches of the band Cream on the front. New gray jacket from H&M, mustard seed necklace, wedding and engagement bands. My hair styles are simple, but there are lots of them. I never like to wear my hair the same way. All my friends know that I’m the best nonprofessional hairstylist they know. I don’t know how it happens; but it does.

And then only lotion on my winter-chapped face. Out the door. You see, I’m often caught in the white lie that I don’t wear any makeup. Ever. And, to be fair, no one ever actually calls me out on this, but I know that when I say it, it’s only a half-truth. I wear exponentially less makeup than everyone I know. Except my girlfriends, Sarah and Charissa, they really don’t wear any. Not in the half-truth way. They may not even own any; you’d never know, pretty faces. Even my little sister, ten years my junior, (parental-style digression diverted) wears more makeup than I do.

For so many reasons, one of the primary being that I like sleep far too much to spend so much morning in front of the mirror, I don’t invest in all the accoutrements that the female population create a market for. Some cover up, a bronzer that has lasted me 6 years and sometimes a touch of nude eye color. The end. But today, the end is the beginning. None.

The circles under my eyes that have puffed up from crying for my best friend, for my girlfriends all 800 miles away, for enduring change and working too much, they stay gray and deep. The pimple that just mysteriously appeared on my right cheek is red from my rubbing it, and it stays red. Bummer for anyone who has to look at it. My eyelids are sort of veiny, I noticed the other day. And today, they remain such. My skin is a little flush in the winter, unevenly so. And tonight it remains.

I’m dressed and ready. I have my bag, my water bottle and a book for the train. I am makeupless and don’t feel self-conscious. Here I come, world. Look at me.

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Things I Don’t Do: Return Phone Calls

Tags

Cold War Kids, communication, distance, friends, friendships, geography, letters, love, mail, pen pals, phone calls, post office, relationships, voicemail, writing

Note: See other items on a list of Things I Do or Things I Don’t Do here: Cook Dinner, Watch TV, Make the Bed

The conundrum of the phone call situation is that I do actually have the mathematical time to return them. But, considering what it takes to return a phone call: the geography, the headspace, the time commitment, the concentration to conversationally catch up, the mathematical time isn’t a great quantifying measure.  Returning phone calls is up there with serious commitments like getting married. So when I say I don’t have time or that I’m too busy, I don’t mean in minutes; I don’t mean that I’m flying around with my jet pack strapped to my shoulders on the run all day. What I mean is that I can’t sacrifice all that it takes to commit to a phone call. Or, to be real and raw, I won’t.  I value the now too much; phone calls don’t feel like right now to me.

It’s part of the reason I tried so hard and for so many years to brand myself as a letter-writer. Everyone knows. Everyone who knows even a little knows this about me. And they don’t write, no one does (Yes, Strongs, except for you). So I feel, even self-righteously (I’ll admit), totally justified in my ignored voicemails, when my mailbox is empty of your letter.

With a letter, I can choose my geography and a comfortable headspace. I can start the letter on the train, where the cell phone towers can’t reach, and stop when I arrive at work with minutes to spare. I can finish when I get home, listening to Cold War Kids in my stereo speakers and eating an apple at the desk. I can take a walk while I deliver your letter, I can make an appointment, or call my mom (my mom does get calls back; don’t fuss, it’s different). I enjoy writing in a way I do not enjoy the labor of calls, especially calls back, when I’m on the guilty end of the exchange, so stuck and jailed by my phone call obligations. If these nuances could just be public about the weaving and knitting inside of me, I would never have personal, only professional, voicemails.  In the meanwhile, I make no sincere apology about this thing I do not do.

the clues [2/5]

Tags

Berghoff, Buckingham Fountain, Chicago, clues, downtown, engagement, friends, future, Grant Park, Lake Michigan, love, marriage, new york, proposal, relationship, scavenger hunt, surprise, the Loop, travel

the waiting [1/5]

Steve dropped me off at the zoo and handed me a letter from Brad. I recognized his penmanship on the envelope. And the way he spells my name, with two e’s. The zoo was one of our places in the years we shared in Chicago. Steve sent me to the bench, and though he didn’t know where that was, I did. The bench is on Fullerton, west of Cannon, next to a bike path. Unassuming, actually crumbling, splintering at each end. It’s where I waited for Brad to meet me the day we split up, well over two years ago. It’s where Brad sat long after I walked away, unwillingly, thinking it best. I sat on the bench this time, waiting, as my letter instructed me to do, for the next clue.

Would a jogger drop a package with a tag screaming my name? Would a bus pull up with signs affixed to all the windows? I started to feel like someone was watching me. Like there were henchmen in the bushes who knew I was at the bench. Walkie talkies all over Chicago were crackling, Subject is at the bench. Please proceed with clue. Just as my curiosity piqued, my phone started vibrating out of control, asking all sorts of incriminating questions.

Do you remember… when you used to send Brad messages during work from that one computer? —where you first met Brad? —where is the best place in Chicago to get schnitzel? All clues were pointing to the Berghoff, the restaurant where Brad and I met one another. Industry shifts amidst which we fell in love. A few more messages from my dear friends buzzed in, Go there now, pal! There was a twenty for cab fare in the envelope. Brad must have known I would try, frugally, to take a bus.

I stood outside the Berghoff for a while. I didn’t exactly leave this place of employment all candy and roses, a going away party with streamers and balloons falling from the rafters. A blind man climbed out of a cab right in front of the Berghoff marquee. Maybe he has my clue, I thought.

Finally, I ducked inside, slid comfortably into the corner where I learned a large percentage of what I now know about Bradley. Behind that lunch counter computer I cleverly, coyly, sent blinking, unordered tables in paragraphs to my bartender years ago when we shared everything in this city. There was a note slid under the monitor with my name on the front in familiar penmanship. I was out the door with the clue and a bit of Spanish dialogue.

I walked down Adams, turned at Michigan to head into Grant Park, where our stage was on the corner. We used to play a graffiti game in the city. Wrote couplets, little lyric lines that we penned on sticky labels and stuck to newspaper boxes, light posts, parking meters, following riddle-directions to one another’s words. We have fun. The last graffiti was on this stage. A simple summer outdoor amphitheatre. I found the graffiti in the winter, something like “Every song I sing ees for you.” Two e’s, like the way he writes my name. It was so perfect, my musician. But things weren’t working right then, so it felt so bittersweet. This empty stage, winter snow, standing alone, the words his heart meant, all the time we’d spent.

I wasn’t sure how many clues there would be. Brad was somewhere in this city. One of the clues would hold him in its palm. Maybe it would be this stage. It was supposed to be, I find, but this weekend there was Bluesfest in Grant Park. Brad sent a message, a picture of Buckingham Fountain, down the street. Change of plans, go here instead.

I walked up slowly to the fountain. I thought he was near, wasn’t sure whether to look for him or for another clue. When he slid in next to me on the rail, he startled me so that I gasped. The seconds moved in fast-forward, crawling over one another to happen next. They’d been waiting for this for years, too.

Linda, will you be my wife? from down on one knee.

All brides-to-be everywhere, don’t be ashamed on behalf of me. I don’t actually remember what I said. Yes, of course, only yours. I’ve wanted to be your wife for years. I’m confident that right now, today, this Fall, it’s right and healthy and perfect. I want to spend “the next forty years” with you. I could have said any of that. My heart was spilling over with all of it.

Whatever I said made people clap.  A man took a picture. In the end, it would only be a few short months until we would be the Dennisons.

the waiting [1/5]

Tags

breakfast, Chicago, clues, downtown, engagement, friends, future, love, marriage, new york, proposal, relationship, scavenger hunt, surprise, travel

We have a friend, Christina. We call her Migsy. And, in a sense, from my end, the plot begins with her. It begins back when I had not yet met her in February, when her name stuck in my head as Brad told stories from work. I contacted her, on blind faith, and commissioned her to help me when I surprised Brad with a visit. I liked her immediately. She’s charismatic and charming. Has a reality about her that I was sure would suffocate in a place like Manhattan. Migsy breathes genuine life into an overstimulated city. I can get down with that.

So when she said she was coming to visit me as soon as I moved back to Chicago, my excitement was overflowing. Sticky root beer float all over my knuckles when the ice cream drops in and the glass lip takes to napping. Brimming over.

The morning of Migsy’s arrival, I waited at The West Egg, a breakfast spot in River North near the lakefront. Downtown Chicago. It’s right around the corner from where a friend of mine used to live, where she once saw Kevin Costner eating a tomato. Or something. My eyebrows were raised, my head on a swivel, waiting for Migsy to saunter around the corner, her head high, cheekbones glistening, smiling.

I put our name in, sent her a text message. She was coming, she said. The sweet hostess sat me at a two top, awaiting Migsy. I sent her another message and sipped a cup of coffee with sugar in the raw. Waited just a bit. My heart was filled with excitement and although I had suspected this weekend as a plot of sorts before, while I waited at The West Egg on the eleventh of June, I really thought Migsy was going to walk through that door.

Across the restaurant, instead, was Steve, Brad’s roommate while he lived in Chicago, and dear friend, proofed by incriminating pictures which may or may not include Looney Tunes sweatshirts and suspenders meant for men over sixty. What are friends for? Momentarily, I thought it coincidence, us all having chosen the same restaurant for breakfast on this particular Saturday, as I waited, still, for Migsy’s arrival.

But then, after I stood to give Steve a hug, he sat down at my table with me. In Migsy’s seat, which was odd. Something wasn’t normal.

Steve said Migsy wasn’t coming. And that I should come with him. He didn’t know that, for once, I had already decided what to order. With Brad, it usually takes me dozens of minutes. With my friend Charissa, nothing short of an hour. Instead, I left with Steve. But not after an accusatory, if prideful declaration.

Brad’s here, isn’t he? From New York City. He must have flown when I thought he was at work. Steve’s eyes avoided contact with mine. He laughed. Never answered. My thoughts were in fast forward. This is it! I could hardly wait to see him.

No longer.

Tags

broken, city, communication, community, conversation, friends, hate, judgment, life, past, relationship, wrong

I used to check up–
Where were you checking in?

Dinner, downtown.
Goblets of the wrong size.
Red wine.

A little bit of highway–
Daylight savings time.

I said no for reasons I can’t describe;
I didn’t lie.
You have no right.

Three Sleeps

Tags

anticipating, counting, epic, family, friends, friendship, home, life, love, Maxston, past, self-esteem, sleeps, travel, waiting, Walker, weekend, Whitney

Back when Whitney and I were friends, her family would rejoice in my cross-state visits. They were a close-knit bunch and the kinship buoyed my self-esteem (a side effect which wouldn’t be currently unwelcome). Her little cousin Maxston was just a tyke, maybe four, maybe six, then. He took to me in a way my memory covets now that it’s been years since. He’d see me across the church when I met them all there and he’d come running, wrap his arms around my neck–a hug with little arms, the kind that made you feel like family when words and things paled in comparison.  Empty against little squeezy arms like these. I digress.

Maxston, in his six-year-old simplicity, couldn’t rightly handle upcoming excitement. He couldn’t count the days on his hand, couldn’t methodically cross off Mondays and Tuesdays on a calendar before bed, nothing was enough. The days waned too slowly when he had to wait. Patience is an adult game. He couldn’t sit in front of the television without legs shaking, without a burst, a sprint to Mom in the kitchen, asking When? When? when something better was creeping closer with every tick of the clock.

So Maxston starting counting things in six-year-old sleeps. If Whitney was coming home in three days, he would have to go to sleep three times before he could wake up and see her. So, three sleeps. That was easy to understand. I can close my eyes one more time and then the thing I’ve been waiting for will be here before the next time I close my eyes. That’s so soon!

I understand the logic because I, at twenty-five, am resorting to it.

Is it the drag that these current patterns are pulling me through, the weight of responsibility that I want to come out from under, the itch to press fast forward and search for apartments in a new city too soon? The future beckons in all kinds of shapes and colors this Spring and counting in sleeps is the only way to keep things grounded.  And so, too old, I count in sleeps to stay sane.

One more sleep until the only city that’s ever been home.
Two more sleeps until my high school best friend, if I can be so archaic with the term, until a gal I’ll  take any day as my sister, though she’s not, until long-distance gets a break, praise God.
Three sleeps until a day that needs to last forever.

Engagement Announcement

Tags

change, engagement, friends, future, God, love, marriage, proposal, relationship

In the picture, they’re dressed nice,
both in black sweaters, she in tights.

Frosted with glass, there are cupboards behind,
Mom and Dad’s kitchen—Iowa—both families intertwined.

We all met in seminary, intermingled with one another
She fell so gently, his steps so slow, so measured toward her.

I, so impatient, watching them come together
But now, it’s too soon, knowing they’ll spend forever.

Talking Talking Talking

Tags

betrothed, bride, change, engagement, feeling, friends, girlfriends, groom, growth, husband, love, marriage, respect, wedding, wife

I remember sitting in the kitchen, when Anne used to live in The Atrium, that old apartment complex where I could never get in without jumping the fence or following the neighbors inside like a stalker. Sitting at the kitchen table with Josi and Rachel, with her roommate Alayna, in front of my syrupy breakfast plate, talking, talking, talking. I was being intentional, taking that trip into the city to hang out with my girls and some days, I was so sick of talking and talking about James. I was selfish. I am. There were days we talked until there was nothing left to talk about. And even hours and minutes beyond.

I remember: I didn’t want to talk about him anymore. The syrup hardened to my plate and the edges of my heart hardened in their selfish ways. But it needed to be talked out. We needed to explore the emotions, the mental complications, the way it all felt. For Anne. For us all. It’s exactly what I’m expecting them to do for me. What is , some days, lacking. Where the Body is not always perfect. Where we remember that we are, in fact, human. Unfortunately.

And it was then, I realize, that I did not yet love him like I should have. I didn’t love him then. I didn’t love Annie’s fiancé during all that talking talking talking. I do now, but I didn’t then. It’s been a slow process for me to understand how he loves and cares for Anne in the lifetime-together kind of way. He does, I know that now.

They’ll be married soon. This is real. Name-change, move to Indiana kind of real. When Anne told me, I felt the joy spilling over and out of me. My feet were socked and curled up in my driver’s seat, the pedals driving themselves. I was squealing like I don’t usually, sounding like a girl. Sounding like a little girl because I love him now. And I want him to be the head of her, her husband, her leader. I want him to have her.

Betrothed was a definition that my middle schoolers needed to remember a few weeks ago. Many of them made a mistake and thought it meant “rejected”. Which is so far off. So far from the promise and commitment and lifetime sense of stay that betrothal elicits. Come May, they will be betrothed. And, I’m alright with that.

Jealous of Joey

Tags

choice, friends, jealousy, Joey, judging, Mr. Green, opinion, pregnancy, Rachel, relationship, Season 8

Out of an episode of the hit television sitcom, Friends, yet again, I find principles of my life emerging, creating beautiful I told you so’s.

Rachel told her dad that she was pregnant in an episode I watched the other day, Season 8. She had been terrified to tell him the truth, because he’d react like a maniac. He did, angry that she was pregnant, angry that she and Ross weren’t planning to get married as a result, all kinds of unjustified angry as far as supportive, loving fathers go. Rachel tried to blame it on Ross, out of fear. Mr. Green tried to reprimand Ross in the most irrational way, potentially sabotaging a current relationship of Ross’s, and thus, Rachel had to—again—set everything straight with Daddy.

She sits in her and Joey’s apartment, reading her Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy and we can hear Mr. Green ranting over the phone, which she holds a good 6 inches from her ear. Phoebe walks in, So? You told him the truth? Rachel says yes. They go to a movie and leave Mr. Green hollering about what’s right and what Rachel should do with her life to an empty Joey’s kitchen.

Comedically, Joey emerges from his bedroom, having just woken up. He rubs his eyes, walks in pajama pants straight to fridge. He hears Mr. Green and starts to look around, to the ceiling, the heavens. We know he can’t figure out where the voice is coming from. [Can you blame me for loving this show?] He finally picks up the phone and Mr. Green is telling him how poorly he has made decisions. I do, too, think of the consequences of my actions! Joey screams into the phone. He and Mr. Green banter and Joey hangs up the phone in an abated fluster.

He reaches into the fridge for a bottle of beer, muttering, I’m not listening to you, man on my phone. He’s hardly phased by the interaction. He, of course, doesn’t think twice about the fact that there was a random man on the telephone telling him how to live his life. But in all of Joey’s casted idiocy, I’m jealous of him. I’m jealous of how he can brush off the commentary and drink his beer in sleepy peace.

I want to be done with all this judging, too. I want to cast off these unending opinions that don’t matter to me. Want to live blamelessly. I don’t care what the man in the phone thinks. I want to hang up on him and be free from the weight of his opinions. I want to set him on the counter, while he wastes his arrogant energy, and go see a movie.

Too Soon

Tags

conversation, death, discussion, friends, friendship, love, memory, past, shame, sickness, suicide, summer, time

She doesn’t mind talking about it. After all, it’s been three years since. In mixed context, they make jokes and say, Too soon? in jest, with smiles. I’m the only one who thinks it still is. I wonder if ever it will be otherwise. If ever Late enough.

I hate to narrate the day. Loathe the way we lean over the details. When we remember and rehearse the hours before and after she didn’t die. I hate my mind’s rememberlessness of every moment. I’m angry at the slices of time wedged in the in-betweens, the pieces of chaos pasted haphazardly brainward.

I’m selfish, too, lost in shame that I couldn’t be the savior of the story. That it wasn’t me who found her obsessively cleaning, drunk on drugs; me who drove her to safety, soaking in every warbled word; me with reams of wisdom, righting all wrongs past. She’s better now. It’s fine. She’s my friend, still. She’s alive.

But they don’t mind talking about it. And I’m stuck in Too soon.