week three
had to write about a 'critical incident, in the sense that i did not know what to do or say'. whatever, prompts.
There are a lot of times I don’t know what I should be doing or saying. I do not consider these crucial moments in my life, however, because there are so many of them and I already consider most social expectations to be over my head. I can remember two or three times in my life where being held accountable for something I didn’t know about has greatly upset me, but they have not happened in the past month. So I’m going to interpret this as a request for awkward moments that have happened lately, because that’s all that not knowing what to do or say is - awkward but fleeting.
There are moments when I am caught off-guard during my daily routine, like when someone who had just moved in asked as I was going down the elevator to check on my laundry if it was hot up here, and all I said was ‘it would be nice if we had a ceiling fan’ instead of ‘yes, extremely’ or ‘depends on where you lived before’ (the kid installed a window AC unit later that day). Or while heading for room 38 during week 2 of my internship and scrambledly asking someone who was leaving to keep the door open, I was surprised to see her close it, apologize, and walk past me, turn around, ask if I needed to get in, then demand to know who I was looking for. I wasn’t looking for anyone, obviously; I just wanted to eat lunch or get my stuff or something, so I was confused. Then she asked who I was with, which I still didn’t get. Eventually I said I was an intern but still didn’t say who I was working for, for some reason (probably because I thought she should recognize me or something, and why the hell was it so important to guard the lunch room from people with IDs anyway?) but eventually with some reluctance she let me in. The reason she didn’t recognize me was that I had just gotten my hair cut, I assume, but it didn’t occur to me to say that, either. Pretty much a basic case of freezing up, stammering, etc.
Circumstances that lead me to lie in order to save face happen every now and then, like that time when I accidentally (via a misunderstanding) told the person in charge of Bell Tower that I’d never been there before, and instead of saying that I’d misunderstood I just went along with it, which overall was a ridiculous conversation. I wanted to check out a Brazilian steakhouse, and we ended up at one that had lots of signs in the window saying it was opening soon, but there were people going inside and laughing and talking and such in the lobby, all dressed very nicely and looking too much like they all knew each other. We went in, got pointed at by the people at the hostess area, and made a reservation. The hostess said that the restaurant opened Monday, did not explain what was going on (I assume an opening party of something? But it was the middle of the week, so I don’t know). She wanted my phone number - I remembered that nice places like to call and make sure someone is coming, so I thought ‘okay.’ At the end of the proceedings, she explained that dinner costs a flat fee of something like $49.50 a person, and there is no way in hell I am spending that much on dinner, but I wasn’t going to back out. So now I am waiting for that call so that I can say I changed my mind. Can’t call them because I don’t have their number. Basically, it was clear to everyone in that situation that the class of the people who can afford to go to these places (and the people in that lobby) and the status/resources of Skot and me are vastly difference. I wasn’t going to admit it right there and say I couldn’t afford it, but I don’t think they will be surprised when I don’t show. Probably shouldn’t have gone in, but oh well. Now I know. Especially since I went to another one, followed a bunch of foreign tourists from a bus inside and just asked blatantly how expensive the place was, in pretty much those words, which was as direct as possible about who I was (a reaction to the other encounter? Probably) and felt pretty silly but good.
And now you have a window into the stupid, awkward moments that I tend to encounter. I could talk about the search my first day here for subway passes, and possibly some other encounters, but I really think that’s enough.
Went to the art institute on Thursday afternoon after work because it was free. Bummed that part of it won’t be built for a year. Walked briefly though the Blues Festival on the way. This afternoon, I help take things from the City Farm stand at the Logan Square farmer’s market back toe the farm. It was extremely windy, which made putting up canvas (or something heavier) signs extremely difficult, reminding me quite a bit of sailing. The Printers Row Book Fair took up most of the afternoon yesterday. We took the bus there and walked back, eating lunch at Ronny’s on the way back (stupid, because neither of us were hungry and then we didn’t eat dinner til eleven). The book fair was great, but it was too much to really consider looking for books in. Lots of amusing books could be found and laughed at though, such as an issue of Sexology, the periodical, dated 1958 (women don’t always do well in relationships when they must be passive? Gasp!), or the Dune (the movie) pop-up book.
It has been brought to my attention once again that I may come across to some people as more negative than I actually am. I see negativity as a feeling that hits for a day every once and a while, and makes things I don’t like feel like problems that are horrible and can’t be solved, but the rest of the time circumstances are just challenges that I should work to deal with or get around or are simply part of how things are, and they lose any heavy sense of the negative. But I guess people who don’t know me well (relatives I don’t see often, acquaintances, whatever) have a difficult time sifting the things I feel almost good about having to confront and those that actually bother me. I don’t think I mention things that actually bother me as often, come to think of it. Another part is, perhaps, the lack of need to hold onto things that have been good. Happiness is ephemeral, just like awkwardness, and though I may rave about a simple and delicious meal I had recently, I may forget or be unable to talk about things on a grander scale. I wonder, sometimes, why people seem so disinclined to believe that someone can just be content; happy in a calm and quiet manner. But that might not even be it. I was excited about Chicago, and still am happy to be here, but now that I’m here it’s the new reality and I am not continually excited in the high-energy sense about it, my job, the farm, or anything else. So when people ask me if I’m thrilled to be working at the museum or in Chicago, I never know how to respond. It’s a bit like when people ask if I’ll be disappointed by doing x menial tasks. I’m not disappointed (don’t really know how I could be); I’m not super-excited. I would like for people to stop asking if I’m one or the other, because that can shake me from feeling good.
Anyway, this was all a preamble for a description of the room, which we have had enough time to discover is just as good-but-slightly-dumpy as a first apartment during an internship summer should be. The appliances work well, except for the freezer (tiny fridges just melt and refreeze things because of how they work). Having a gas stove is awesome, and the oven takes no time to preheat because it’s not huge. The windows don’t have screens because of something that’s going on with the outside of the building, I think, but we’re so high up that not many bugs end up flying in. We’re also high enough that the noise from the bars isn’t all that distracting. The closet is huge, and now that me moved one of its doors so it will actually close and open (we just had it pressed open before) we don’t have to worry as much about the bathroom door not closing all the way. The tub takes a while to stop dripping, and the bathroom window is stuck partially open, so we stuck a towel in there to limit the number of water-seeking bugs that go there (because we’ve found some) and it’s always cooler than the rest of the apartment because of that permanent opening. The view is awesome, especially at night, because we can see state street all the way past that weird triangle ‘park’ where another road splits off it, and where a bunch of fire trucks were gathering one night.
And there is the heat. Our room is on the top floor and all the heat in the building rises up to us. This was nice when it was chilly outside. Now it’s close to intolerable at night because unlike everyone else I know, we don’t have a ceiling fan, and I’d venture to guess they didn’t install any on this floor. I talk about it to some people, and sometimes it’s a complaint and sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s a rather neutral observation. Today I feel that the heat is something I’m going to try to get past. Before, I was thinking I was weak and could toughen up by just dealing with it - increase my tolerance for heat (more humidity than anything else) over the summer, which would be pretty cool. Today, though, I though about headrests from New Guinea, which I’ve been rehousing. According to the display case, they were used to lift people’s heads above the ground to increase air flow (thus cooling a bit more), but they also had mats placed on them, and some of them were ceremonial, so I’m not sure how that all fits together. Skot came up with the idea of a head-hammock, a less uncomfortable version of this. But in seriousness, the plan of action is either to start keeping a bowl with water and a washcloth in it nearby so I can wipe off my face whenever, to keep the windows upen all the time, or to try to find somewhere that sells fans or dehumidifiers. It’s pretty much an adventure of the smallest (and for me) best kind. We’ll see how it comes out eventually.
Skot can’t find a job because no one in Chicago wants someone who will only be here for two months. I guess they’ve got more of a labor pool to draw from than the suburbs, so it makes sense, but is still pretty disheartening for him. Maybe he could enter a sleep-deprivation study that will pay him at the end or something. That would be pretty interesting. I’ve always wondered what goes on in sleep labs (there’s one in the basement of my dentist’s office, and the hygienists are always a little creeped out).
There weather this weekend has been great. Not to cloudy or sunny, enough breezes to cool things down. I ate a lot of fruit this week because summer is the season for it, and I’m pretty sure we are wired to want more fresh crisp foods when they are best for us (which is now). Getting fresh vegetables from the city farm is the best thing, and I just had some delicious pepper-and-green-onion eggs because of it.
Saw a man slumped, unmoving, outside of one of the bars, two police with bicycles on either side of him. Skot said he’d said hello to him earlier and had an odd, short conversation. We hoped he wasn’t dead.
There are a lot of times I don’t know what I should be doing or saying. I do not consider these crucial moments in my life, however, because there are so many of them and I already consider most social expectations to be over my head. I can remember two or three times in my life where being held accountable for something I didn’t know about has greatly upset me, but they have not happened in the past month. So I’m going to interpret this as a request for awkward moments that have happened lately, because that’s all that not knowing what to do or say is - awkward but fleeting.
There are moments when I am caught off-guard during my daily routine, like when someone who had just moved in asked as I was going down the elevator to check on my laundry if it was hot up here, and all I said was ‘it would be nice if we had a ceiling fan’ instead of ‘yes, extremely’ or ‘depends on where you lived before’ (the kid installed a window AC unit later that day). Or while heading for room 38 during week 2 of my internship and scrambledly asking someone who was leaving to keep the door open, I was surprised to see her close it, apologize, and walk past me, turn around, ask if I needed to get in, then demand to know who I was looking for. I wasn’t looking for anyone, obviously; I just wanted to eat lunch or get my stuff or something, so I was confused. Then she asked who I was with, which I still didn’t get. Eventually I said I was an intern but still didn’t say who I was working for, for some reason (probably because I thought she should recognize me or something, and why the hell was it so important to guard the lunch room from people with IDs anyway?) but eventually with some reluctance she let me in. The reason she didn’t recognize me was that I had just gotten my hair cut, I assume, but it didn’t occur to me to say that, either. Pretty much a basic case of freezing up, stammering, etc.
Circumstances that lead me to lie in order to save face happen every now and then, like that time when I accidentally (via a misunderstanding) told the person in charge of Bell Tower that I’d never been there before, and instead of saying that I’d misunderstood I just went along with it, which overall was a ridiculous conversation. I wanted to check out a Brazilian steakhouse, and we ended up at one that had lots of signs in the window saying it was opening soon, but there were people going inside and laughing and talking and such in the lobby, all dressed very nicely and looking too much like they all knew each other. We went in, got pointed at by the people at the hostess area, and made a reservation. The hostess said that the restaurant opened Monday, did not explain what was going on (I assume an opening party of something? But it was the middle of the week, so I don’t know). She wanted my phone number - I remembered that nice places like to call and make sure someone is coming, so I thought ‘okay.’ At the end of the proceedings, she explained that dinner costs a flat fee of something like $49.50 a person, and there is no way in hell I am spending that much on dinner, but I wasn’t going to back out. So now I am waiting for that call so that I can say I changed my mind. Can’t call them because I don’t have their number. Basically, it was clear to everyone in that situation that the class of the people who can afford to go to these places (and the people in that lobby) and the status/resources of Skot and me are vastly difference. I wasn’t going to admit it right there and say I couldn’t afford it, but I don’t think they will be surprised when I don’t show. Probably shouldn’t have gone in, but oh well. Now I know. Especially since I went to another one, followed a bunch of foreign tourists from a bus inside and just asked blatantly how expensive the place was, in pretty much those words, which was as direct as possible about who I was (a reaction to the other encounter? Probably) and felt pretty silly but good.
And now you have a window into the stupid, awkward moments that I tend to encounter. I could talk about the search my first day here for subway passes, and possibly some other encounters, but I really think that’s enough.
Went to the art institute on Thursday afternoon after work because it was free. Bummed that part of it won’t be built for a year. Walked briefly though the Blues Festival on the way. This afternoon, I help take things from the City Farm stand at the Logan Square farmer’s market back toe the farm. It was extremely windy, which made putting up canvas (or something heavier) signs extremely difficult, reminding me quite a bit of sailing. The Printers Row Book Fair took up most of the afternoon yesterday. We took the bus there and walked back, eating lunch at Ronny’s on the way back (stupid, because neither of us were hungry and then we didn’t eat dinner til eleven). The book fair was great, but it was too much to really consider looking for books in. Lots of amusing books could be found and laughed at though, such as an issue of Sexology, the periodical, dated 1958 (women don’t always do well in relationships when they must be passive? Gasp!), or the Dune (the movie) pop-up book.
It has been brought to my attention once again that I may come across to some people as more negative than I actually am. I see negativity as a feeling that hits for a day every once and a while, and makes things I don’t like feel like problems that are horrible and can’t be solved, but the rest of the time circumstances are just challenges that I should work to deal with or get around or are simply part of how things are, and they lose any heavy sense of the negative. But I guess people who don’t know me well (relatives I don’t see often, acquaintances, whatever) have a difficult time sifting the things I feel almost good about having to confront and those that actually bother me. I don’t think I mention things that actually bother me as often, come to think of it. Another part is, perhaps, the lack of need to hold onto things that have been good. Happiness is ephemeral, just like awkwardness, and though I may rave about a simple and delicious meal I had recently, I may forget or be unable to talk about things on a grander scale. I wonder, sometimes, why people seem so disinclined to believe that someone can just be content; happy in a calm and quiet manner. But that might not even be it. I was excited about Chicago, and still am happy to be here, but now that I’m here it’s the new reality and I am not continually excited in the high-energy sense about it, my job, the farm, or anything else. So when people ask me if I’m thrilled to be working at the museum or in Chicago, I never know how to respond. It’s a bit like when people ask if I’ll be disappointed by doing x menial tasks. I’m not disappointed (don’t really know how I could be); I’m not super-excited. I would like for people to stop asking if I’m one or the other, because that can shake me from feeling good.
Anyway, this was all a preamble for a description of the room, which we have had enough time to discover is just as good-but-slightly-dumpy as a first apartment during an internship summer should be. The appliances work well, except for the freezer (tiny fridges just melt and refreeze things because of how they work). Having a gas stove is awesome, and the oven takes no time to preheat because it’s not huge. The windows don’t have screens because of something that’s going on with the outside of the building, I think, but we’re so high up that not many bugs end up flying in. We’re also high enough that the noise from the bars isn’t all that distracting. The closet is huge, and now that me moved one of its doors so it will actually close and open (we just had it pressed open before) we don’t have to worry as much about the bathroom door not closing all the way. The tub takes a while to stop dripping, and the bathroom window is stuck partially open, so we stuck a towel in there to limit the number of water-seeking bugs that go there (because we’ve found some) and it’s always cooler than the rest of the apartment because of that permanent opening. The view is awesome, especially at night, because we can see state street all the way past that weird triangle ‘park’ where another road splits off it, and where a bunch of fire trucks were gathering one night.
And there is the heat. Our room is on the top floor and all the heat in the building rises up to us. This was nice when it was chilly outside. Now it’s close to intolerable at night because unlike everyone else I know, we don’t have a ceiling fan, and I’d venture to guess they didn’t install any on this floor. I talk about it to some people, and sometimes it’s a complaint and sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s a rather neutral observation. Today I feel that the heat is something I’m going to try to get past. Before, I was thinking I was weak and could toughen up by just dealing with it - increase my tolerance for heat (more humidity than anything else) over the summer, which would be pretty cool. Today, though, I though about headrests from New Guinea, which I’ve been rehousing. According to the display case, they were used to lift people’s heads above the ground to increase air flow (thus cooling a bit more), but they also had mats placed on them, and some of them were ceremonial, so I’m not sure how that all fits together. Skot came up with the idea of a head-hammock, a less uncomfortable version of this. But in seriousness, the plan of action is either to start keeping a bowl with water and a washcloth in it nearby so I can wipe off my face whenever, to keep the windows upen all the time, or to try to find somewhere that sells fans or dehumidifiers. It’s pretty much an adventure of the smallest (and for me) best kind. We’ll see how it comes out eventually.
Skot can’t find a job because no one in Chicago wants someone who will only be here for two months. I guess they’ve got more of a labor pool to draw from than the suburbs, so it makes sense, but is still pretty disheartening for him. Maybe he could enter a sleep-deprivation study that will pay him at the end or something. That would be pretty interesting. I’ve always wondered what goes on in sleep labs (there’s one in the basement of my dentist’s office, and the hygienists are always a little creeped out).
There weather this weekend has been great. Not to cloudy or sunny, enough breezes to cool things down. I ate a lot of fruit this week because summer is the season for it, and I’m pretty sure we are wired to want more fresh crisp foods when they are best for us (which is now). Getting fresh vegetables from the city farm is the best thing, and I just had some delicious pepper-and-green-onion eggs because of it.
Saw a man slumped, unmoving, outside of one of the bars, two police with bicycles on either side of him. Skot said he’d said hello to him earlier and had an odd, short conversation. We hoped he wasn’t dead.