Friday, February 20, 2009

middle-aged

Well, it happened, I turned thirty-five. What I thought would be the loneliest birthday turned out to be one of the best birthdays I’ve had in a few years. About six years ago I started hosting my own birthday parties. I love to cook and I love to watch people eat my food so hosting a party is quite fun for me. This year, hosting a party was not an option, no real friends here and no money to splurge on myself.

On Monday I sent a desperate email to my friend Michael to encourage a friend of his, an acquaintance of mine, to take me out for my birthday. I figured Michael would not even email me back because he is busy with his own life but he called me later that day asking me what I wanted to do for my birthday. He had arranged for another friend of his Scott, a local comedian, to take me out. I was pleasantly surprised and happy to have plans for my birthday. Scott and I chatted that night on the phone and made plans for Tuesday night, my birthday. Between chatting on the phone and checking out his Facebook page, I was looking forward to hanging out with this guy on my birthday. I think there is a big potential for a comedian, or any performer, to feel like they are always on stage, and give you a performance instead of just being themselves but this guy seemed down to earth and pretty curious about me. On the agenda was dinner at Calo in Andersonville and then drinks at Green Mill. 

I wanted to get gussyed up on my birthday anyway but since there was a man who was going to spontaneously spend his evening with me I didn’t hold back. I wore my favorite dress, a red three-quarter sleeve wrap around with a plunging neck line. I did my “Bettie Page” look for hair and make up. I wore a black sweater over the dress for a work-friendly look. I had a full day of work and part of class to get through before I could have birthday fun. 

I took off from class at 7. The train ride from the loop to Andersonville left plenty of time to retouch my make up and fluff my hair. I got quite a few stares on the train but didn’t understand what the stares were communicating.

When I first arrived in Chicago the Red Line was under construction and delays were rampant. Now that construction is complete I have to relearn how long it takes to travel. Needless to say I arrived at the restaurant about 10 minutes early. This worked out good because I had time to chill before he arrived.

Scott looked and smelled great. We greeted with a hug and I gave him a peck on the cheek. The restaurant is really big but it was a slow night and pleasantly quiet. He was complimentary of my appearance and seemed happy he had decided to adopt me for the evening (side note: not sure why the word “date” freaks people out. “date” is not spelled m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e). He ordered us a bottle of wine, a Shiraz. We chatted it up for awhile and got around to ordering. My meal, stuffed Gnocchi, was delicious but his was mushroom-y. He didn’t notice on the menu that his meal would be smothered in sliced mushrooms. He pecked at his meal and didn’t drink much wine. He said he had gone out with friends prior to meeting me and had eaten too close to dinner. The dinner conversation was great. Really down to earth and chatty. I think we were both surprised that the other person seemed so cool and relatable. After a bottle of wine, a meal, and some deeelicious Tiramisu (an hour and a half) we headed to Green Mill.

Green Mill is a fantastic place. It was were Al Capone hung out when he was on the North Side. Original decor is in place and there are these cozy little booths to sit in. This is definitely the kind of place were you give your undivided attention to the music. The emcee tells you before the start of each set to keep talking to a minimum. Scott and I got there right when a set ended and sat at the bar at first. We talked and flirted for awhile. He seemed to think it was odd that I did not really have any friends or dates since I moved to town. We were able to settle into a booth by the time the next set started and continued our conversation and flirting at an appropriate volume.

We stayed through the second set and then headed back to his place. I will leave the rest of the evening to your imaginations.

I sincerely enjoyed my evening with Scott. He is a cool person that I hope to hang out with again. In addition to meeting a cool person, the evening was a nice reminder that life is good here in the Chi.

I need to give a special shout out to my friend Michael. This is just one of many times he has gone the extra mile for me.
Posted by tyrant at 20:46:10 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

want-to-do list

I was talking to my friend Stephanie this weekend about my want-to-do list. I think she was a little shocked that I couldn’t name them all with out looking at the list. She encouraged me to sit down and figure out what it would actually take to get all of it done. I begrudgingly accepted her advice. She is my age and has already completed everything on her want-to-do list so she knows what she’s talking about. I am not interested in being as zealous as she is because we need a few things in life to dream about. If we have nothing to dream about, where will we get our inspiration? It was already such a milestone to make the list but now I have to do more. Boo/yay.

For now, I am just making the list its own post. I’m also adding some stuff:
  • Eat and bicycle my way through Italy.
  • Work with under loved kids.
  • Dive a shipwreck in the Great Lakes.
  • Dive ruins in the Mediterranean.
  • Buy a boat.
  • Experience mutual romantic love.
  • Meet my next long term canine companion.
  • Taste every Scotch on the planet.
  • Retire into my own business that includes one or more of the following: my own skin care products, coffee shop, art studio/gallery, bed and breakfast, and/or café.
  • Get all of the Mac certifications.
  • Have at least one exhibition of my art and/or photography.
  • Dance on pointe.
  • Buy a low rise apartment building, live on the top floor, and rent out the rest. 
Posted by tyrant at 04:24:56 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sunday, February 8, 2009

another full week

Last week was bursting at the seems, I was barely at home. 

Schaumburg is always a long day. I taught a Mac Basics class for our Essential Media Skills course. I did some updates on a few machines and hammered out an equipment borrowing agreement. 

I conducted five one-hour sessions for deejays this week. They got progressively better as the week went on because the station manager is requiring each deejay to attend two training sessions. I had quite a few who did both sessions this week. We have deejays bringing in music on iPod, CD, hard drive, laptop, and at least one who wants to deejay using YouTube. I made progress on the written documentation for the radio station technology but have more work to do.

Class went well this week. Class time and reading/research assignments took up about ten hours of my week. Sentence structure and developing story ideas were the focal points of the week. Our textbook suggests that there is two types of reporting: main stream, what readers want to know, and civic, what readers need to know. A reporter has to find and pitch stories that will sell papers (what a reader wants to know) but the roots of journalism have set precedent that reporters are the watch dogs of society (what a reader needs to know). I asked if reporters are pigeon-holed because of this consistent conflict of their job. My instructor answered: “Well, that is the sixty-four-million dollar question.” I gained great respect for a book this week. It is an oldie but a goodie, it is the almanac. It’s the goddamned Interwebs crammed into an easily referenced book. Talk about about wireless access to information? It is too soon to tell but I think it might be my favorite book in the whole world.

A book I’m am growing less fond of by the day is the AP Stylebook. This ragtag book of opinionated formatting suggestions grates on my nerves. It isn’t completely useless it just conflicts with quite a few design standards. In the design world we:
  • do not use two spaces between sentences.
  • do not indent a paragraph.
  • do use a comma before “and” and “or” in a series of three or more.
  • do spell out all numbers one hundred and below.
Wednesday night I went to the beat meeting. We had a few new faces and are still making great progress towards our summer goals. Officer hot cop was not there but I did find out he is gay. It was nice to have him and bike guy on my mind for awhile because it kept me from thinking about the man I can’t seem to get over. Hopefully there will be some new faces soon.

I had a visitor this weekend! My friend Stephanie has been living at a near by artists colony called Ragdale. She had a book reading in Pilsen on Friday at Radio Arte. She stayed with me Friday night and we spent the day together yesterday. It was good to catch up. She will be back in town Thursday and Friday.

I did finally reply to Marcy asking her questions about why she divorced Phil. I also asked why she always seemed to favor my brother over me and why she did not allow my mom to adopt me. I told her if she needed time to respond I understood. She replied the next morning with a combination of hurtful, confusing, and ignorant statements. I do not plan to write her again unless she sends an email asking me questions. I did confirm there are actually two misspellings, not one, in my name on my birth certificate. 

It’s Sunday, midafternoon and there is still studying, laundry, and grocery shopping to do!

Posted by tyrant at 19:52:46 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Saturday, January 31, 2009

the storm

Well I knew this week would be busy because it was the first week of classes but this was an intense week. On the work front things went fairly well with a glaring exception. Class went well. A family interaction knocked the life out of me for a couple days.

Work

My Schaumburg day went well this week, no tech issues. I was without access to our office for the entire morning so I just set up camp in the student lounge, drank coffee and read the Trib. 

In Chicago, tech went fairly well with two exceptions. The two very public chances I had to shine were a disaster or embarrassing. The embarrassing moment was in a classroom hooking up an instructors laptop to the projection system. I was flustered (from being interrupted from a critical deadline) and just not thinking very clearly. This particular instructor is “Mr. Convergence” so I was hoping to make a positive impression. With this and the fact that he witnessed the radio station launch, he likely is advocating for my dismissal.

The radio station launch was a disaster. I have been testing our software off and on for two weeks now. There were two known issues: low vocals when broadcasting live and a sporadic connection stall with our host Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). The morning of the launch we were uploading some music to play after the live ceremony. We were encountering an FTP error. I checked the software preferences and the remote server password had been erased. After adding the password there was still an error (other internet connections were fine). After restarting the software, machine, etc. there was still an error. I called tech support (at this point 12 minutes before we go live) and he had me do somethings I was uncomfortable with so close to launch. He had me reset our DJ interface and he restarted our server.

The server restart did not solve our connection problem. He also did not tell me to restart the streams in our listening rooms. I did not think to do it because I could still hear music. But since we had established our connections before the server restart we heard the automated feed but when it came time to hear the live broadcast, there was radio silence. Once we restarted the streams we could hear both people in the interview (the station manager and the university president) but the vocals were dramatically lower than what they tested as. When I reset the DJ software the default setting for live broadcast reestablished to 28K and we broadcast 56K High Quality. This is like turning the volume half way down from its current setting. IBS tech discovered this after the interviews were over. He forgot update his .xml file (used to reset the program) to default to our broadcast frequency. Also in one of our listening room you could not hear one of the mics at all. I discovered yesterday that the jack on the projector was not connecting to the left channel. A wiggle and it’s fixed. Probably just jiggled loose from the HVAC vibrations. I also discovered the setting on the mixer was on mono and not stereo which was my fault.

The 50 people who showed up for our event were polite about the technology issues brushing it off as learning pains or “this is just student radio” but two asked me why I didn’t test the software in advance. I gave them my “Go fuck yourself” look and told them I did and these issues were beyond my control. The station manager and promotion manager were horribly disappointed. They do not understand technology enough to get what happened. Apparently the student paper has a reputation for spinning the bad side of stories they cover so the managers are worried about the story that will be published.  I am interested too because no one from any of the media outlets present interviewed me about tech problems so I am not sure what can be legitimately written. And even though these issues were largely out of my control, when you are the “computer guy” you are just supposed to make shit work. You may think I’m being hard on myself but you must remember that I am a female in a male dominated field, my position is new, it is also temporary position so I literally earning my keep right now, and Roosevelt is a very small, gossipy place. My position is not popular outside of my department so there are people who will enjoy witnessing, and glorifying, my failures.

The last thing that happened is that the live recordings from the ceremony got deleted. I assumed they got recorded on their server because our live stream goes to their server and gets broadcast from there. They are recorded on to the local hard drive. That’s fine and good except that on Friday we discovered the source of FTP error/intermittent connection error. The software was installed on the Admin accout but being used through a standard user account. I was instructed to create a new user account and reinstall the software directly in that account. In the process of cleaning up this digital debacle I did a hard delete the initial user account. All of the live recordings that I assured everyone we would have, including the interview with the president, are gone. The IBS tech guy tried to make me feel better by offering to be blamed. He just didn’t seem to get how bad of a reflection his actions had on my job. Our radio station had been off the air for 10 years so this was a big deal to a lot of folks. Roosevelt is in a year long contract with this company so I feel like there is no recourse. I have no choice but to shake it off and move on.

Class
I enjoyed my class this week. The class is co-taught and both of my instructors are knowledgeable seem to really enjoy journalism. The highlight of my Tuesday class was a perspective on print journalism that I have not heard before. Basically that print has stood the test of time, which includes radio and tv, and that it will be able to live alongside the web successfully. It’s more the issue of the corporate values print journalism has had to adopt to survive that is not working. We learned the five news values (timeliness, proximity, human interest, consequence, and prominence) and compared them to corporate values (tradition, advertising, and personal values.) I learned we will be doing a lot of on the street reporting on Tuesday nights. He’ll give us an assignment and we hit the streets, go home and write it for a Sunday midnight deadline. He seems to want us to stay around the area of our school to do our reporting. Not too many folks are around in the evenings in the loop so that should be interesting. I am not looking forward to the reporting assignments.

In Thursday’s class we explored the AP Stylebook, the Almanac, and the recommended dictionary. We took a quiz so our instructor can see where we are at with grammar and current events. As I handed her my quiz I said: “Oh, the embarrassment I will feel seeing you in the hallways from now on.”

Homework this weekend is reading 3 chapters and a worksheet to help familiarize us with the above reference tools. The only things I did not like about class was buying my textbooks. I dropped $170 on four books. One book alone was $79. I was thinking I would be spending less than a hundred bucks on books. 

Family
This week I heard from my birth mother Marcy. Her first email was fine. She started with “I don’t know where to start.” and encouraged me to ask questions. I replied, answering the questions she had for me, and asked her a few basic questions. One was about why my name was “Lyra” on my birth certificate and what were the origins of my middle names “Xavieria Gae.” Lyra is indeed a typo on the birth certificate and I was named Tyra the female version of my brother’s name, Tyrone. Gae is a German name that is both Marcy and my grandma’s middle name. Xavieria is actually another typo. I was named after the famous Madame Xaviera Hollander. My genetic father, Phil, was apparently quite fond of the book “The Happy Hooker” and thought that name appropriate for his innocent newborn baby daughter.

She also went on to tell me that she and my brother have both been diagnosed Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder. While mentally and physically (just got a clean bill of health from my doctor this week in fact) I feel fine, this really freaked me out. It made me feel like this diagnosis is looming uncontrollably in my future. Now that I have had time to digest it, I think I have dodged a bullet, well several actually. I think it was good in a way that my life was so fucked up when I was a kid because I was in some sort of counseling for most of my teen years. I enrolled in grief counseling after my mom died and that helped me work through a lot of family issues. So I think because I have had an opportunity to work through a lot of my life issues and experiences I am mentally sound. 

This is by far the most intense week I’ve had in about three months (my jobless days were very stressful.) I think things will simmer down for next week. It is cathartic for me to write on my blog. 

Posted by tyrant at 21:18:17 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, January 25, 2009

calm before the storm

Classes start at Roosevelt tomorrow. I feel equipped for the semester but you never really know until it is in full swing. I have met more people in the last two weeks who have attempted to explain to me what life is really like at Roosevelt. Most of them are suggesting that it’s not going to be easy. What I hear most of them describing is exactly what I’ve experienced living in a small town. I survived small town Texas so hopefully I can have a pleasant experience at Roosevelt. I will just keep doing what I’ve been doing since I’ve started, keep my head down and strive to create the best computing space in Chicago. 

The job has, of course, picked up a lot of speed this week. My primary focus has switched to getting the technology for Roosevelt’s internet radio station up and going. It has been a fun experience. My lack of experience as a DJ makes a few things challenging to grasp but everyone is ecstatic about the progress I’ve made. It’s interesting that the station manager who has been pushing for a radio station since she was a freshman (now a senior), has never been a DJ. She doesn’t even own an iPod and hasn’t really used iTunes. This is interesting because there is no record/CD player that you play music from for this station. You drop music on to the streaming server from iTunes. Live DJ-ing is challenging to because there is about an 8 second delay from what you say/play to when you audience hears it. So there is no real time method of monitoring you levels.

It was a busy week for me outside of work too. I went on a date with the chainlink guy on Wednesday and on Thursday I went to Green Spa Night. The date went fine but I am not going to go on another date with him. First date jitters aside there is something that I didn’t click with. It’s one of those “little voice” things and I am trying to let my little voice have more of a say in my life. It is something I did not listen to with both my mom and with Jeff and both of those relationships had me sacrificing who I was to care for people who could not demonstrate their love for me. So no more with cycle guy and onward to office hot cop. At Green Spa Night I sat right next to a woman who was from Trinity, Texas (pop. 1200). We were both equally shocked by our encounter. She and her friend are much younger than me but are interested in keeping in touch. I have added two more Facebook friends to the mix.

Family matters: my grandpa has been writing me. I am still not sure what to make of the comment in that email or the blurry/blacked-out memories I have from my childhood. I have been paralyzed my whole life by these memories. I have recently decided to break free of them and just acknowledge (especially as I get to know some of these family characters again) that there is pain on the horizon and I will deal with that when it arrives. Until then I will just interact freely with these folks as if nothing has happened.

As for today. I have a one day weekend because I had to work out in Schaumburg yesterday. So to make up for lost time I think I am going to attempt a double feature today (Revolutionary Road and Milk). I also hope swing past the Gap or BR to spend these gift cards I have. This will leave little time for the domestic duties I have to complete: laundry, grocery shopping, and house cleaning but, oh well, fuck it.

Tomorrow starts bright and early with me needing to be out in Schaumburg by 9 am. Luckily the campus shuttle starts tomorrow and I do not have to take a bus for the third leg of my journey.

Posted by tyrant at 17:19:18 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sunday, January 18, 2009

the rest of my life

I turn “middle-aged” in less than one month. Turning 35 is taking up a lot of brain space these days. This milestone is an interesting catalyst to a new city, new job, new year, and new family connections. I am finding myself in a bittersweet state of mind.

The bitterness is that it takes so long to figure out what life is about leaving seemingly little time to live it to the fullest. It has taken me so long to break out of my shell of insecurity that developed from the way I was raised. I am just entering the phase of life where I feel confident with virtually every part of my life. The sweetness is that the first half of my life has left me surprisingly unscathed. It feels good to shake off the remainders of my worthlessness. I have developed a healthy mental and physical lifestyle over the last 5 1/2 years. Most people are flabbergasted when they learn my age because they had assumed I was much younger. 

Being in a new city with a new job starting while starting a new year is providing me with a clean slate but the family connections I am developing are providing much needed perspective on my life. Just having family members in my life that are proud (with some lighthearted “envy”) of my accomplishments is new and amazing. I am not sure why this is seems more significant than having friends that are proud of me. I guess family members are the über peer group? In the past few weeks I have gone from feeling like I have been just been treading water in life to feeling like I am on the swim team. This brings up some interesting class issues for someone who proudly identifies as blue collar but I’ll write about that later. This family connection also brings up some interesting nature vs. nurture issues that are for a later post.

One thing I still need to work on is trusting the good things in life. I have a great start to the rest of my life here in Chicago. But because of the things that have happened to me in life it’s hard to believe the good is here to stay…that my life has changed for the better. An example of that is my recent doctor’s visit. It’s hard not to believe, because life is going so good, that the doctor is not going to call and tell me I have a tumor. This stems from the culture of growing up poor and with a dysfunctional family. That culture feels more like a birth right. It is like me no longer identifying as a Texan. That is impossible because I was born in Texas. That being said, I have lived in the midwest so long that I am disconnected from my identity as a Texan. So I guess I am slowly becoming disconnected from the culture I have experienced so far in life.

Because I didn’t know life could get better, I didn’t bother noting the things I wanted to do that seemed unachievable or superfluous. In the spirit of life can change for the better here are some things I want to do in my life in no particular order:
-Eat my way through Italy.
-Work with kids at an orphanage or be a Big Sister.
-Dive a shipwreck in the Great Lakes.
-Dive ruins in the Mediterranean.
-Buy a boat.
-Experience mutual romantic love.
-Meet my next long term canine companion.
-Taste every kind of Scotch on the planet.
-Retire into my own business that includes one or more of the following: my own skin care products, coffee shop, art studio/gallery, bed and breakfast, and/or café.
-Get all of the Mac certifications.
-Have at least on exhibition of my art and/or photography.

Posted by tyrant at 21:50:22 | Permalink | Comments (3)

learn me this

So…I’m gonna be a masters student.

Yeah. My education benefit already kicks in and I do not have to wait for in-state status. There is also no GRE requirement at Roosevelt which removes a huge barrier for me. [When you made a 740 on your SAT and it took you 16 years to finish your undergraduate degree the GRE seems like a death wish. I'd rather give up a pinky finger or something.] When I am not utilizing all of my benefits I feel like I am throwing away my salary. I couldn’t get over the fact that I would be throwing away money so I started exploring what was available.

None of the masters programs at Roosevelt really interest me so I talked with the professor that teaches photography for my department and the director of the journalism program about graduate study that would focus on photography. The department focus is on convergence journalism so there is no photography track but they said they would work with me. I got excited but when I saw that fees would be $175 and my tuition remission form had to be submitted to human resources by the 15th, I just gave up. This kind of money is not remotely financially feasible for me this month. A few days later I randomly called my friend Michael. As we were catching up I told him about all of this he really encouraged me to go for it and not wait until summer. So with his support, I am able to take class this semester. 

I will be taking Journalism Fundamentals:

Intensive preparation for students without previous journalism course work or training. Focus on mass media writing, reporting, and editing techniques; grammar, usage and Associated Press style. Class meets five hours weekly.  

I am excited about an opportunity to improve my writing and learn to edit. The class works perfectly into my schedule by meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-8:30 at the Chicago campus. Mondays I will be out in Schaumburg and every other Wednesday I will be in a community meeting.

I am currently registered as a student at large but will gather transcripts and formally enroll before summer session registration. I am excited and intimidated by grad school. Excited because I never thought I would have the opportunity to advance my education. Intimidated because 1) you have to maintain a 3.0 and 2) the reporting classes I’ll have to take. The process of learning to write well will be challenging but there are clear rules to follow. Learning to be a good reporter on the other hand seems like more of an art than a science.

The first day of class is the 27th.

Posted by tyrant at 01:28:51 | Permalink | Comments (2)

another week in the bag

I’m pretty bored and lonely tonight. I wish I had something to do. Not too many free things to do tonight so I’ll probably just stay at home and watch movies.

I went to Evanston today to check out a 40% off sale at an outdoor outlet. I almost got a new coat but decided against it. My priority is warm footwear. This winter has caught me off guard. This is my 7th midwestern winter and I thought I kinda got the hang of things. For being a Texan, I think I handle winter pretty well but the recent subzero temperatures are making me uneasy. [Going out in this weather to a Texan is like a Texan inviting a midwesterner to a picnic on a 105 degree day. It goes against logic.] I found a good pair of breathable long johns and finally found some affordable warm/water repellant boots (a find in Evanston today). The good news is that I am saving money holding off buying smaller pants. With long johns and leg warmers on I need the extra room. With this new gear I feel more comfortable being out in the elements. I’m so padded that if I bite the dust, I’ll probably bounce.

I have not been on my bike since last Saturday. I am really frustrated. I will definitely bike tomorrow to yoga. Monday and Tuesday look really promising as well, it’ll be up in the 20s. Monday I’ll bike to a MLK celebration and Tuesday I’ll bike to work. Tuesday is winter bike to work day. It’s on January 20th each year to acknowledge the coldest day in Chicago history January 20, 1985. The temperature at O’Hare was -27 with 36 mph wind producing wind chills of -93 degrees. Cyclists will meet up at Daley Plaza for coffee, hot cocoa, and apparently a restaurant is providing cheesecake. I am looking forward to it. Biking has become normal to me and I miss it. Now that I have some new gear I feel more confident riding and hopefully this dizziness issue will be resolved soon too.

Speaking of the dizzies, I went to see a doctor about it on Wednesday. I like my doctor. I found her by cross referencing my healthcare directory with Yelp. The working hypothesis is that the dizziness is related to an inner ear problem, a sinus infection, or blood sugar problem. She is taking a shotgun approach and filling me with antibiotics. They also sent me to the lab and took about 3 tubes of my blood for testing. I should hear blood test results Monday or Tuesday and go back regardless in two weeks for a follow up.

I’m looking forward to MLK day, it’s one of my favorite holidays. I like to wake up, make coffee, and sit and listen to the I have a dream speech. I usually listen to it a couple of times. I’m am not sure what celebrations I’ll hit but I will be out and about to see what I can learn or be inspired by.

Posted by tyrant at 01:12:49 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Monday, January 12, 2009

decent week

this was my first full week of work since my first week. i’ve been at the job for four weeks now. i now have a designated office space and a telephone number. i actually had tasks to do this week and that felt good. tomorrow starts out in schaumburg. i am meeting with the video broadcast professor and will do some general tasks in the schaumburg lab. tuesday i have another meeting with central i.t. getting administrator access to our labs seems to be an issue. central i.t. is not thrilled about communications hiring a lab manager who has the same authority as their system administrators. i understand the issues on each side but don’t really like being in the middle. we will see what happens. i am also likely taking on tech support for the radio station.

i went to the book club meeting for “animal, vegetable, miracle.” it was enjoyable. there was a snow storm so it was just a small group of four. they had coffee and pastries. i rode my bike to green heart even though there was a storm. i have ridden my bike in every kind of weather except hail. there is something i love about being out in a storm (especially a thunderstorm). it simultaneously reminds that i am vulnerable and strong.

today i went to yoga but took the bus, saturday’s ride wiped me out. today’s class was the bikram method sans the 105 degree heat and 45% humidity (a.k.a. a texas summer). it was a great workout.

i was uniquely aware this week/end that i live in chicago. this sounds funny but i can’t believe i’m here, i feel like this is someone else’s life. there is a sense of clarity i feel here, like life is finally happening in real time. my life is very simple right now and i have a lot of anonymity. i’m sure as i make boy/friends and settle into my job life will become more complicated and fast paced.

speaking of the men folk, there are two who are currently holding my attention. the first one is someone i met through chainlink. he was on the new years ride but we didn’t get a chance to talk. he has a link to his blog from his chainlink profile. i like what i have read so far but have been especially impressed by his musical interest. he has a link to his last.fm radio station from his blog and our musical tastes are about 95% the same. seriously, it’s ridiculous. i made a post on his wall thanking him for sharing his blog and his jaaamz. we’ve been emailing off and on for two weeks. the other man is someone i met through the community policing meeting i attend (and now partially facilitate). he was at the first meeting i attended in november and i thought he was really cute. he has a fantastic aura. he wasn’t at the december meeting but was at this month’s meeting. he introduced himself to me but did so to everyone else (the only difference is he used just his first name with me.) we had some nice eye contact throughout the meeting but someone pulled me away after the meeting and we didn’t get a chance to talk. so other than his name and that he is a police officer in our beat i know nothing about him. i am working on verifying his sexual orientation. if you didn’t know i literally live in the gayest police beat in chicago. i’ve never been attracted to a gay man before so hopefully my hetero-dar is still in good working order.

um, let’s see, what else. ah, family. i have not heard from my grandpa since that email i blogged about a post or two ago. i have decided to just wait until his next move. i have had three flashbacks this week that have reminded me why my mom likely pulled me away from my grandma and grandpa. i find myself missing my mom and my grandma because they both likely had some valuable information for me about my past. i did send my brother and email saying that i wanted to get to know him again but i didn’t know how to do that. i also told him that i was ready to talked to marcy. i asked him to tell her he was talking to me and to ask her to contact me. i assume i will not hear from him for a long time. 
Posted by tyrant at 03:05:14 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sunday, January 4, 2009

mentally drained

my mental drainy-ness is linked to the family conversations i’ve been having and a book i’ve been reading.

family update
i exchanged enjoyable emails with several family members over new years. i also got the letter from my grandpa. it was mainly the story of how he and his current wife got together. it is a great story that gives me hope that life will continue to provide happiness. the last page of the letter was fawning over me saying that his 2008 wish had come true because he “finally knew where i was.” he included a picture of my grandma and told me every year since i’ve been away from them they bought me a christmas present and put it under the tree. he kept all of those presents, even after my grandma died, until a few years ago when he moved to mississippi. you can imagine at this point in the letter, holding a photo of grandma who was (at the time of the photo) a stroke victim in a motorized wheelchair, i was bawling my eyes out. i spent most of friday night grieving. i am deeply saddened that my grandma died not knowing that i loved her and missed having her in my life.

the letter got me thinking about how i got so split up from them. it is what i hope to sort out as i get to know family members again. i think a lot of it had to do with with my mom but i’m not sure. even after phil and marcy split i spent a lot of time with my grandma and grandpa. it was after phil and my mom split that i didn’t see them anymore. it’s weird because virtually all of the good childhood memories are connected to my grandma and grandpa.

my grandpa and have been emailing about twice a day. he sent me some family photos and asked what year they were taken. i replied and told him more pictures were welcomed if he had any to send along. this morning i got two photos. one was an extended family shot and one was a shot of troy, his first wife, and his three sons. this was a forwarded email that he had sent out to folks a couple years ago. in the email he lists everyone’s name and relationship to him. down at the bottom of the list was this (fyi-my grandpa only writes in all caps):

“THE ONLY ONE THAT IS NOT IN THE PICTURE IS TYRA, MARCY’S DAUGHTER. I DO NOT KNOW WHERE SHE IS AT THE PRESENT TIME.

I HAVE THOUGHT OF TRYING TO FIND HER BUT HAVE NOT DONE IT.

IT WAS HER DESIGON TO GET LOST.”

you can imagine this is upsetting for me to read. i have resisted the urge to respond directly to this comment. i just sent him a thank you reply and talked about how everyone has grown.
animal, vegetable, miracle
i came across this cool little store named greenheart. i found out about the on metromix under the free/cheap events list. greenheart was listed because they are hosting a green spa night in late january. it’s a class on how to make basic skin care products. i have been SO interested in this but have not taken the initiative to make anything. i am excited about the class. while on greenheart’s site, i noticed they have a book club. all of there books have a eco-lifestyle/social justice theme. the club meets this thursday and saturday. my goal is to attend thursday evening.

this month’s book is “animal, vegetable, miracle.” i am delighted with this book. it is an interesting memoir packed full of helpful information. it is giving me a lot to chew on. it taps into several ideas i find to be true: less is more, sacrifice/working hard is the only way to appreciate what you have, the goddamned corporations are sucking healthy qualities out of food (in the name of convenience)while simultaneously destroying the earth.

the book has inspired me in a couple ways. it has re-ignited my love of cooking/eating which has been missing since i moved to chi-town. (i do not really have an appetite anymore. i’m still cooking from scratch but not i don’t enjoy my food for some reason) it has also inspired me to eat according to the season and my climate. i have set a goal that during farmers market season this year (april-october) i will eat only what i can find at the market or from a local grower at wholefoods. oh yeah, i also want to make cheese. there is a great section in the book about cheese and how it relates to lactose intolerance.
Posted by tyrant at 16:59:13 | Permalink | Comments (1) »