You Get Me...You Really Really Get Me.

Maybe you are comfortable with who you are, secure in your “You-ness” and confident in how you are perceived by others. Me. Well, I am and I’m not. I am a complex mess of insecure and overconfident, but that’s more than a blog post, that’s a whole book of exploring essays and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in therapy. But this weekend two things happened that made me realize that sometimes people get me. Really get me.

One was a conversation I had on Friday night. It was a brief, in passing conversation. With someone who, when I met him this summer, nicknamed me Legally Brunette. I am ditzy. This I know. I have never pretended to be anything else. But I am also smart. And sometimes I don’t know which side of me people see. I assumed calling me Legally Brunette was a nod to my ditziness. Which didn’t bother me. I myself like to mock my ditziness. But on Friday night (actually it was probably more like Saturday morning because I’m guessing it was close to 1AM) the aforementioned friend said something to the effect of “Sometimes I feel like I need to be prepared to have a conversation with you.”

I asked, all insecure and freaked out, “What the hell does that mean?”

And he responded, “Why do you think you are Legally Brunette?”

I assumed it was my ditziness. He then explained (and I am paraphrasing because this was late into Friday early into Saturday after many a vodka) that like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde people probably underestimate me not realizing that I am actually surprisingly smart.

It took awhile for my late night pickled brain to process words and thoughts and I wasn’t feeling so smart swimming through my inebriation but I took away a whole new appreciation for being called Legally Brunette.

The other surprising moment came in the form of a gift. It started on Tuesday when I was out in the netherworld known as The Suburbs. A friend and I were weaving our way up and down the aisles of a Home Goods when we across a wooden box that was a replica of a typewriter.

I said “When I get a job, (I start many sentences with this. I have already alloted my first several paychecks to shopping sprees at Zara, a dresser, plane tickets- both domestic and international, shoes, a decorator, various outings around Chicago, dubious investments in jewelry. All and all anything from the practical to the ridiculous. It’s not quite as insane as my If-I-won-the-lottery list, but the When-I-get-a-paycheck list is growing) I want to find an antique typewriter.”

Many of my fellow SAIC writing program friends had one, my parents have one. I want one. Not to use. To look at and imagine what if I was Hemingway or Capote clacking away brilliant things on a typewriter. My friend made a face and I assumed it was a there she goes again that weird writer girl look.

Then Saturday afternoon she showed up at my door with a typewriter. An antique typewriter. It had belonged to her neighbor's grandfather. The neighbor used in it college to type all her papers. Apparently my friend had already been planning on giving it to me as a belated birthday gift.

She gets me. Really gets me.

Caught without a pen

I had the perfect idea for a story. It was going to be my Pushcart Prize, my O'Henry winner. There was an object in the story and it was the perfect metaphor for something. It was original and brilliant. I thought of it while riding on the bus, but I didn't have a pen on me. I can't remember it now. This is why writers always have a pen and at least a scrap of paper on them.

~~~
I had another venti cup of crack today. I love the starbucks near my office because I actually ordered a "Venti, Nonfat cup of crack, foam, no whip." Love the guys there. Although my barista was pushing the sprinkles. But perfection doesn't need extra trimmings.
~~~
Small things make me happy. Like chopsticks. Eating chicken and broccoli stir fry with chopsticks feels like an occasion. Even if I order from the Chinese restaurant on my corner at least once a week, it still feels like an occasion.
~~~




Now that it is a new year, I've been thinking about the one that just past. It was a big year for me. I changed cities, I changed lives. Plus, on a morbid note, I did not attend one funeral in 2005. Which I think is the first year since 2001 that has happened. So, it I would say, all in all it was a good year.

These are the happy moments for me in 2005 (in no particular order):


Getting into the Art Institute. I had to re-read the acceptance letter several times.


Lunch at Atlantic Grill with my brother. It was a too hot, white sun in our eyes June day and we ordered the Shellfish castle. I went through a shellfish phase this summer, it was like I was addicted to raw oysters and shrimp. The "Castle" is really for four people. They had to move us to a larger table. People walking by on the street stopped and stared at it. It towered over us as we spun it around, searching for the next clam or oyster or shrimp. It was a glorious display of decadence, sitting outside on a weekday afternoon, eating too much overpriced shellfish at a restaurant on the Upper East Side.

Dinner at Pipa with the girls. It was one of those of nights when there was a surprising warm weather and everyone in Manhattan leaves work early to drink cocktails outside. It was right after I got into grad school and SD was offered the job in Singapore and EL had just moved to New York. Later we went to the Brandy Library and MM and EL stole wine glasses. It was just one of those nights that I loved being in New York and I loved having friends who had known me since college.

London. I hated it and I loved it. I hated flying back and forth and being jet lagged for a month straight, a week here and week there. I loved hating it, and I hated that I loved it. I loved everyone in the office there. I missed New York the whole time I was there and couldn't wait for a proper cup of coffee - even at Starbucks the Brits have figured out how to ruin coffee, and yet I felt determined to come back. Of course, waiting for the car service to pick me up at JFK, it was warm and sunny and all blue skies and I thought that I would never want to go to London again in the middle of the summer.

My brother's graduation from Syracuse. Even though he and I fought in the car driving home. Once we are in car together for a long road trip, we are instantly five and fifteen again. But that weekend, it was nice to be with my family and I was proud of him.

Fourth of July, lunch and cocktails at Sushi Samba with KW and VR.

My first night sleeping in my apartment in Chicago.

My birthday. I threw myself a party and invited people from school that I barely knew, and found out that I had new friends.

Sailing on Lake Michigan in my uncle's boat with my parents and my uncles and my aunt. Oh and that same weekend that they were in town, I had a "date" with my dad and we had ice cream at a soda shop in my neighborhood. He can't hide how excited he is that I have moved to the city of his childhood. Like all real Chicagoans, transplanted or not, he believes that Chicago is the best place in the world.

Lunch at the Central Park Boathouse with SD.

New Years Eve at KW's. Seeing all my New York friends again. CH turning to me after I told a dirty joke and saying with real emotion and nostalgia "I've really missed you." SD was back from Singapore, and JC came up from DC, and then we went to Biddy's afterwards. It was the only way I wanted to say good bye to 2005.

Speaking of hugging...

I had friends over on Friday night. We drank hot wassail and ate snacks. It was the first time I had seen most of them in three weeks. They hug. Real hugs. The squeeze tight and hold on kind. It was good to see them again and to remember that I do like Chicago, and that I do have some great friends here.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop connected to free wi fi. When I first sat down my computer wasn't connecting. It makes me feel powerless. I have the ip address, but low connectivity. My computer struggles to repair it and tells me over and over again it can't. I'm feeling melancholic today. I wonder, is it a metaphor for my mood?

A women walks around, asking everyone if they have internet problems. I realize, it's not just me. It's everyone. Sometimes I’m too metaphoric for my own good.

A good friend and fellow writing MFA'er once commented that for such a cheery person there is an unspoken sadness in my writing. I think I'm pretty happy. I don't know why my writing tends to be pretty sad. Maybe if my laptop didn't have connectivity issues, I'd write happier stories.

Dave Matthews is playing on the juke box. I can say without irony that I love Dave Matthews. I've loved Dave Matthews since I was twenty one. I saw him play at fraternity parties. Under The Table and Dreaming reminds of my college boyfriend and our tortured messed up love affair, and basically just being young and drunk and in college. I'm happy for his success, but I miss the old Dave Matthews. The play in tiny bars in the south Dave Matthews.

I love my new coffee shop. They are now playing the Cure. It's as if they are playing music from my IPod.