Quiet

Sorry it's been so quiet here. To be perfectly honest, I haven't been doing so well.

I don't know what it is, exactly, but nothing seems to make me happy. And if THAT's not the whiniest GenX slacker sentence I've ever typed...but it's true. And it's not so much my own life that's doing it--at least I don't think it is--but I'm just so tired of this world. I'm tired of wanton cruelty and petty remarks on the radio; I'm tired of divisions and balkanization. I'm tired of the same constant hamster-wheel of competing hatreds and you're-wrong-no-you're-wrong that characterizes 99% of public discourse. I know I'm just as guilty of having opinions as the rest; I remember I used to be a much nicer person. I'm tired of interacting with human beings, mainly, because lately it seems like we're all much crappier to each other than we used to be. Mostly I just want to go to sleep.

I used to think, when I heard about people who "couldn't live with their past", that it was because they were ashamed of things they'd done. But I think I understand a little better now; now I think maybe sometimes it's not so much shame, as not wanting to remember the time when they were happy, because they don't know how to be happy like that anymore and they're scared it will never happen again.

I'm tired of it all and I know I should be happy. I have a job and it's not the stupid abusive environment I was in before; everyone here is nice and they mostly seem to like me, though I haven't the least idea why. I'm well-paid and I have more than 99% of people on this earth; I'm healthy and not starved and my drinking water isn't laden with microbes and I'm not subjected to torture or imprisonment for my beliefs, and most of the people in the world would be wildly envious of me.

But in spite of that, all I want to do every day is come home and pull the blankets over my head, and all I want to do in the morning when I wake up is to go back to sleep. I'm sure it looks like laziness from the outside; it's not. I am excruciatingly conscious of the many things I need to do or should be doing or even, in some cases, want to do. I manage to do the things I need to do--barely--but the rest falls by the wayside. And that, to me, is not a life. I don't know what it is, but it's not a life.

Wow. That was a downer--even for me, and I'm the one writing it. Jeez.

Thanks, Everyone

Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments. Anyone who's ever loved a pet knows this particular pain, and I thank you all for your support.

I posted a few days ago about joining one of those all-women gyms. And I've been fairly good about going--the only days I missed were Tuesday, from laziness, and yesterday because...well, you know. Determined to make up for it, I donned my workout clothes and went in today after work.

Well, I now need a new wardrobe just for working out.

I knew this chain--Curves--had a history of bad politics. I knew the founder was a fundamentalist Christian and blah blah skippy. There are things we overlook when we feel we have no alternatives (and before you go saying "Bally's" I refuse to work out with gym-rats and women whose makeup never runs. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.) I signed my little contract and bought some Payless gym shoes.

Well Monday, as I was finishing up my workout with the recommended stretches, I noticed a sign on the wall. "Protect the sanctity of marriage! Call your representatives and tell them: Marriage is one man and one woman!!!"

I was irked by this, substantially, but it was too late to cancel my contract. Instead I packed my "Can we have our country back now?", W-with-a-slash-through-it T-shirt to wear during my next workout.

Today--wearing the aforementioned shirt--I discovered something new--a small table beneath that sign, with two clipboards....bearing petitions for a state referendum defining marriage as one male, one female--period.

And at that point I decided: I'm going to buy a large selection of EXTREMELY leftist t-shirts. Just to make the point, and possibly to provoke a confrontation, from which I will promptly flee.

Once I'd made that momentous decision, I spent the rest of my workout trying to resolve a philosophical question:

Not five minutes after discovering the petitions, I was regaled with an amped-up 240-beats-per-minute remake of "Y.M.C.A.", quite literally the gayest song ever written (with the possible exception of "In The Navy", which--see above.) How can a company who espouses the inequality and inferiority of gay people then turn around and prominently feature songs by the fer-cryin'-out-loud VILLAGE PEOPLE on their workout muzak??? What do they think is HAPPENING at that Y.M.C.A?? I'll give you a hint, Curves Fundies--it ain't a wholesome game of Scrabble!!!

This is another one of those Things I'll Understand When I'm Older/Dead, I guess.For now--off to scandalize the sweaty wingers.

R.I.P Aria, 1991-2005

Today I had to have one of my oldest friends put to sleep.

She'd been sick for some time, losing weight due to an overactive thyroid, and despite the pills I'd been wrestling into her since April, she was getting skinnier and skinnier. The vets said as long as she was eating and got checked every couple of months, it wasn't a worry. Then a couple of weeks ago she came down with pinkeye, so another medication got added to her collection. It didn't seem to be helping much either.

Last night I went into the downstairs bath and she was stretched out behind the toilet. I picked her up and she was just boneless, unresisting. I thought maybe she was just reacting poorly to the heat--the other four cats were in varying states of inertia as well--so I gave her her pill and put in her eye ointment, and put her down near the fan. Sometime during the night she made her way back to the bathroom, and this morning she was still there. I picked her up for her morning pill and she gave me that look. I'd seen the look once before, when my tabby was in the last days of his fight with cancer. "I've had enough," it said.

I opened a can of food and put it down next to her--nothing. She sniffed it once and licked it a little (and spat out the pill I'd given her five minutes earlier) and then just looked up at me. The boys were circling the dish, meanwhile, and she didn't even bother to hiss at them. (Aria had the best crunchy-hiss EVER. She could scare off burglars with that hiss, and she used it every chance she got.) This from a cat who, two days ago, would have ripped your fingers off for a scrap of food. A few days back we sat on the sofa together and shared a plate of spaghetti noodles, strand by strand, and I got nipped a few times for my generosity.

I went to work and called the vet immediately. I knew something was really wrong, and when I brought her in, I found out my worst suspicions were correct. The probable diagnosis was kidney failure, though they couldn't be sure without blood work. Regardless, she was a very sick kitty. "It would take a lot of time in the hospital and a lot of blood-work and treatments, and even then there's no guarantee," the doctor said.

She was fourteen years old. Even at the best, they said it might get her a couple more months, of questionable quality. They said without treatment she might not even survive the drive home.

I held her while the doctor gave her the shot, and told her she was a very good kitty, and petted the stripe between her eyes and thanked her for everything she'd been through with me. And she drifted off without a flinch or a whimper.

Aria was with me through some of the craziest times in my life. Firefly and I picked her out from a vet's office in our little college town, on my 21st birthday, a little handful of gray-and-white fur with what looked like a halo around her. Kitten aura, we called it; it certainly didn't signify an angelic nature, because she was a fluffy little demon.

When we moved back to our respective homes at the end of that summer, Aria came with me--my plans were more settled, or something. She was with me when I met JP, when I married David, when I left David, when JP and I moved in together. She sat like an Art Institute lion outside the bedroom door while JP and I lay dopesick in the heat. The night JP died, she broke out of the room we'd stayed in, and spent the next two days hiding under the bed in the spare room at JP's mother's house, til I came to claim her, Tiger, and my clothes. She was with me through move after move after move, through CR, through everything.

I'm not very good with death. It brings up unresolved issues, I guess. I'm sure there are those who would say "just a cat"...but that cat was, in many ways, the last link to a life I don't have anymore, and people who are gone. So yeah, I'm taking this kinda hard.

I got in the car and left a message for Firefly (Aria's "other mom") to call me; then I came home and kissed all the other stupid cats, even Cassidy, the biter.

Rest in peace, Aria. I'm really going to miss you.

Hey SpinsterWitch....

Finally!!!

Naptime, Please??

Oh my god, I could NOT be more tired.

I am at that state of sleepiness where I actually feel nauseated and dizzy, and each of my eyelids weighs seven pounds.

The caffeine is not helping. I question whether even crystal meth would help THIS level of tiredness. I am so tired that I had to cancel my plans for tonight and change them to tomorrow.

What plans, you ask? Well...

I try not to bitch too much about my weight here on the blog--after all, it's one of those things I SHOULD be able to control (and I would, too, if there wasn't so much delicious food in the world!)--but it's been a problem for most of the past ten years. I got a taste of being skinny back when I was an addict--I was a size 11 for the first time since I was in grade school--and I liked it. I've lost some weight in the past few months, mainly after my surgery, but there's still plenty more to go.

So yesterday I went and joined one of those women's gyms, and today after work I was supposed to have my orientation and first workout. I called and changed it to tomorrow. We shall see how THAT goes. (I'm skeptical. And I don't want any overly-chirpy staff trying to "support" or "motivate" me, either. The things that would give me support, the things that would motivate me, are so internal to me that I don't talk about them to close friends, let alone chirpy strangers (although I do post them on a blog where strangers--chirpy or non-chirpy--can read and ponder. So...go figure, or something.))

One of the main reasons I'm so tired, however, belies my comment from last night about LJ. It's uncanny, really; all I have to do is make a dissatisfied comment about the relationship, even in a forum he's completely unaware of, and he suddenly makes some move to pull his ass out of the fire.

Last night I stayed in my air-conditioned room, switching back and forth between "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Rock Star, INXS" while soaking my feet and giving myself a manicure and pedicure. I was perfectly contented, really; but while my nail polish was drying I started to think of tasks that needed doing. So instead of going to bed, I stayed up til about 11, vacuuming the bedroom, moving furniture, etc.

Around 1:00 I was sleeping soundly when LJ came to bed. I always wake up at least a bit when he comes in; generally, though, he rolls over and starts snoring right away. Not last night, though...last night he was feeling chatty.

After bringing me up to date on the latest in the neverending Chronicles of Maywood--he knew both the victim and the shooter in the latest murder there--he told me what he'd been up to before coming home; he and Marcus and K were apparently sitting around drinking and talking all night. "About the real shit," he clarified. And he went on for a while about how the three of them were different from all their other friends; that what they had in common was that all three of them have good women in their corner. Marcus's girl has stayed with him even when he had nothing; K is still with his high-school girlfriend, so they've been through all types of stuff together. And then there's me..."And I told 'em, 'I love my girl and all...I mean, I don't know if she knows it or not, but....'" (This is apparently the only way he can say it, which...yeah, okay, not ideal, whatever--but I'd rather hear it like that than not at all. Which is pretty much what I told him when he said it--"Well, put it this way--it's nice to HEAR it once in a while," I said. I have to keep reminding myself: I'm only his second real girlfriend. Though that doesn't excuse his cluelessness, to a point it DOES explain it.)

He went on, and the general gist of the conversation was how much he really does appreciate me and what we've got. And again: that's nice to hear.

By the time I got to sleep, it was probably about 3 A.M. (hey, it wasn't ALL conversation...) and then I got up at 7. I feel better about LJ....but ohhhhh man, I need some SLEEP.

About Chez Gladys

One of my loyal reader/commentors, eatmisery, asked me a question today which seems to deserve an answer. In response to yesterday's post about the drug spot and its sandwich truck, she asked:

"Chez Gladys will be okay, right? Would you ever consider selling the place to move elsewhere? I know you love where you're at, but is it worth it? What would be a good reason to stay? I'm genuinely curious."

Chez Gladys should be fine. This block is rough, but it's a two-sided coin, you see.

I've posted here and there about LJ and his "job", which I like to characterize as "freelance herbal-pharmaceutical sales". And in this capacity, he is involved with a loosely-allied organization whose members profess similar employment. Really, it's not much different from any other professional organization; it's like the Teamsters, only with more guns. They have their rules, their policies, their ways of doing business, things which are not to be violated, and they police themselves.

The nice thing about it is that all the members of LJ's "union" know each other, or know someone who knows someone who knows everyone. And so, for example, the other morning when I came outside and there was a strange man retrieving something from under our front porch (which he swore wasn't drugs, but c'mon now), all it took was a two-minute call to LJ to ensure that such a thing would never happen again. "I talked to dude," he said later that night, "the one with the motorcycle, the one who runs the block? And he said he was gonna talk to everyone and tell them to stay away from our shit."

Another example: the other day when Tim was here and we were running errands, we came home with our hands full of bags. In trying to juggle everything while taking my housekeys out of my pocket, apparently I forgot to press the "lock" button on the car remote.

Just before he came to bed around 3, LJ went out to get a few things out of the truck that he'd left there--a couple of CDs, some mail. He came back in and said "I think someone was fuckin' with the truck--the glovebox was open, and that little box inside the armrest--like they was lookin' for something." I thought about it and realized what I'd done, and apologized even though they hadn't stolen anything (there was nothing to steal!).

The next day LJ called me at work to tell me that he'd talked to one of his other associates on the block, who told him that he'd seen someone in the truck--probably a crackhead, he said--and that he'd run him off before he could do any real damage.

I've tried to explain this to various friends and family members, but it's hard to understand unless you're here: the drug dealers want trouble just as much as I do, which is not at all. And the worst kind of trouble would be trouble involving me, because of the fundamental politics of race here in Chicago.

See, if a black person kills another black person in this neighborhood, it might make the news, depending on the circumstances. Mostly, though, it's just "expected" somehow. But if a white person dies at the hands of a black person, that's a headline. And if the victim was a white woman? An educated, professional white woman? That would bring down the police like the wrath of God--and THAT would be very, very bad for business. All the drug dealers want is to do what they do in peace, really.

Some of them know me by sight; they'll say hello when I'm sitting out on the porch, or laugh at me when I go stand in the spray from the fire hydrant. They smile at me as I drive past; like my neighbors to the east or the woman on the corner who keeps offering me free kittens, they're just part of the neighborhood. I know they don't quite know why I'm here, though I'm sure some of them see LJ and draw their own conclusions; but they also know I'm not going to interfere with them, and between that and the affiliations they share with LJ, they don't interfere with me either.

Could I sell this house? Maybe. It wouldn't be easy; there are five or six other vacant houses on the block, most of them with "For Sale" signs in the window, and my house (as we know!) has some flaws that need to be corrected before it would really be salable. If it sold, I'd almost certainly make a profit. But if I stay longer, if I fix this house up the way I plan to, I will quite likely make a killing. This neighborhood, sooner or later, will be one of the hot places to buy. I've watched for ten years as the gentrification crept westward, and it's coming closer. I don't think I'm entirely happy about that--there's a reason I don't live in Lakeview or Lincoln Park--but from a financial standpoint it's not a bad thing.

More importantly, though--I feel like this is where I belong, somehow. (Or at least, if I don't belong here, there's an actual REASON for it, instead of the nebulous not-belonging I've felt nearly everywhere else in my life. I can deal with not belonging somewhere as long as there's a good reason. It's that inexplicable, I-should-fit-in-here-but-somehow-I-don't feeling that I can't stand.)

Plus: I'm a writer. Someday all these experiences will be useful...I hope.

Gentrification: A Setback, Perhaps

Something I've never seen before:

The drug spot in front of Chez Gladys now has its own sandwich truck.