Well, I seem to be reaching a sort of peace with this town, I think.
I can't say I'm at the point of being happy that I moved here, at least not yet, but I can say it isn't awful. It has stuff to offer, and I think in time I'll adjust to the pace of it.
That isn't to say that the hayseeds out in my part of town still don't drive me nuts, they do, but in all honesty the trixies of Chicago drove me equally nuts so I guess it all kind of evens out.
Maybe it was spending the day in Chicago on Friday, going to my old haunts, that realized while the frustrations I had at the time were something that could have been dealt with and overcome, I really couldn't see that when I was there in the thick of it all. Living in Chicago was a muddled, stressful thing and as much as I miss it now, I pretty much was hating life when I was there, so it's for the best that we left.
Last night we went to Harvey's and saw some really bad bands. The first was this band that was just really obnoxious and the microphone was so fucked up, you couldn't hear a word the guy said. However, he ran around on stage like a spastic monkey, which was amusing. At one point he was doing mildly obscene things with a chair until some guy ran up there and took his chair. This was actually very funny, because the guy got really mad about it. The band after that was a girl band. They were pretty generic. They could be just about any band on the Kill Rock Stars label. We got kind of bored of this after awhile, and left half way through. As we did, I passed a couple of buildings advertising loft condos. We wished, in retrospect, that we had done our homework a little bit more. Our place is great, but we hate the part of town we're in, and it would have been really great to live in the midst of everything. Oh well. It's something to consider in the future. We both want to stay at least two years here, but it's nice to know there are luxury apartments downtown should we ever want to move. I suppose if they don't do something about the algae in the pond, the appeal of more than one summer would fade a bit. It's a real eyesore at this point. We hardly even see the ducks on the pond anymore.
So my mother and stepfather came to visit this weekend. We met them in Chicago, where they'd attended a convention. We took the Amtrak. First, we went to Clarke's and got some lunch. It was great going to Clarke's again. Then we went to the zoo, which was ...interesting.
We walked around, looking at the animals, and my mom was oddly enough more intrigued by the duck pond than any of the other animals (including the lions, polar bears, zebras, etcetera) which was sort of ironic, but to each their own, I suppose. But it got really amusing as we were leaving. We were going to just go to a cafe to kill some time for dinner (her feet really hurt so we weren't going to do any more of the touristy stuff) when she remembered she had seen a street artist in the zoo.
That's where the trouble all began.
She decided that she had to get a drawing of me from this street artist. I explained to her in no uncertain terms that I was not posing for this street artist. She started telling me how good he was (which, of course, is why he's doing drawings in the zoo.) and I still refused. She still dragged us by this guy to try to convince me. This street artist was this kind of sleazy hustler type, and it was very obvious. He tried for a minute to get me to pose for him but realized that I wasn't going to go for it so he started "working" my mom. He of course told her I was "pretty" and had "the kind of face he loves to draw" (and she somehow didn't see the ulterior motive in it) and of course gave some struggling artist sob story.
I still refused.
So she got my stepfather to pose. We sat down on a bench, and she tried to convince me to pose again. I tell her that I could draw a self portrait if she really wants one, which only invites a jab at my artwork from her. (And this is meant to convince me how?)At one point, she was showing me the pictures he had up, and of course he did the whole nice picture/crappy picture trick...he pointed at one picture that he probably didn't even do (none of his "samples" were even the same style...) that was very well done and said "that's the fifty dollar one" and then another one that was really crappy and said "that's the twenty dollar one" and she then informs me that she did in fact get the fifty dollar one.
Arrgh.
So now she's trying to convince me to pose for a fifty dollar one after Jim, utterly convinced that this guy can "capture my true inner self". Well, I started smoking a clove and the smoke was bothering her so I told her I would put out my cigarette if she stopped begging me to get my picture drawn which she finally did. Heh.(Well, she tried again after I put out my cigarette, but I started to pull the pack out of my purse as soon as she did, which quickly got her to drop it.)
the guy finished the picture of Jim and even my mom thought it was horrible and resembled Jabba the Hut. But she still didn't try to haggle with the guy, just paid him the fifty bucks and makes one last ditch attempt to get me to pose. Which, of course, I laughed at and so we left.
We went out to Katerina's for coffee after that, which was nice. Being in that whole Irving Park/Damen/ Lincoln area made me very nostalgic and a tad bit homesick. After we had our coffee, we went to dinner at the Boulevard. As we drove down Kedzie, between Irving Park and Logan Boulevard, I felt a tad forlorn. I looked at all the old buildings, I watched the neighborhoods change, just sort of flow into eachother, changing kind of like an amoeba, and I knew fully why I left, but still cursed my inability to see past the obstacles enough to make it work. Maybe someday, after I get my degree and can do work I like, I'll go back. But probably not. If I leave it will probably be to go to someplace new, someplace without preconceptions. But it feels good to think about it always being there, even if the experience of living in Chicago fell sadly short of the potential it always seemed to hold.
So then we went to eat at Boulevard, which was a very good time. I had my usual favorite: caesar salad and their mac and cheese. I washed it down with a glass of chianti. It was nice to go to the Boulevard again.
Going to the haunts is a good and a bad thing. I mean, yeah, I do go home and then I stare out the window and don't see the old buildings and traffic and flurry of activity, but it's a nice feeling to be able to go to the places I used to hang out in so much. It's a good feeling to know that my favorite parts of living there aren't so far away as to be unreachable. I can get to them anytime.
We headed back to Kalamazoo, which my mom thought was a very charming town. Which I suppose it is.
The next day, we went to breakfast at Colonial Kitchen, then I took them to KIA. We ran into a couple people we had met at that party a few weeks ago and I remembered the charm of the small town: you can be walking around someplace and run into someone that you met, it's a bit more organic than a big city in that regard. It was probably a year before that started happening to me in Chicago.
Then, we went into KIA and my mom and stepdad really liked it. They spent a long time in it. We'd already seen most of the exhibits, so Rob and I decided to go play in the interactive part of the museum. There's this one thing there where it takes your picture and you draw over it with your finger, then it prints out your drawing. I took three of these, and gave them to my mother telling her "See? You didn't even have to pay a hustler fifty bucks for it." Then, we went to a fair going on across the street. The band was good, though we didn't get much chance to stay and listen. My mom and Jim seemed a bit tired of walking around and the chairs all seemed like they were in the sun,so we headed back to the apartment, where we watched movies and Rob cooked an absolutely fantastic dinner. They left in the early evening, saying that we should visit their new home in amish country.
So that's it, my weekend in a nutshell. Tomorrow I start my new job...