15 Jul 2016

Keeping My Ears Cool.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Tips | 0
Hey, that's my neighborhood! Photo: John Picken, 2010, via Wikipedia.
Hey, that’s my neighborhood! Photo: John Picken, 2010, via Wikipedia.

Because I’m from a small town in Iowa and I was never super popular in school, I have done many a foolish thing in my life to appear cooler than I am. Certain items of clothing, jokes told in bad taste, middle school disloyalty – they all lay upon the bonepile of attempts at cool.

Walking under the el tracks this morning as a train blasted overhead, I covered my ears. It took me years before I was willing to do this. It’s Chicago, man. It’s the el, man. Don’t be a wimp. Only old folks and little kids plug their ears when the train blasts by. The el is Chicago’s chi: energy traveling through the body. You’re either one with it or you’re not.

I believed this, in so many words, and would endure physical pain when walking in an alleyway if the el came through. (The buildings on either side of an alley trap sound; a train crashing past is loud as a jet landing.)

I’m not sure when it happened, but I finally got over myself and now I put my paws over my ears when I hear a train coming in those situations. The freedom I feel to do this is heady. Isn’t that funny? Isn’t it strange? What we put ourselves through to be acceptable. I used to grit my teeth and bear it when an ambulance passed at close range, too. I had never seen anyone in New York City plug their ears when an ambulance or fire truck would roar past; it must be really uncool to do so. So I didn’t, and would grimace and hurt when that would happen.

You know what’s cool? Since I’ve begun covering my ears for a train or an ambulance, I’ve seen more people doing it. I’ll detect a fire truck down State St., for example, and as it comes closer and goes by, I’ll have my ears protected. I’ll look around and often see a couple other people follow suit. Maybe I just never noticed them before, but I don’t think so. I think sometimes one person has to say, “I’m not cool and I don’t care” and then other people say, “Okay, me too.”

 

2 Jun 2016

The Case of The Missing Drama Award Certificate.

by | posted in: Art, Day In The Life, Story | 0
The award, scanned all these years later. Image: Me and my trusty printer.
The award, scanned all these years later. Image courtesy my trusty printer.

When I was at home in Iowa last week, my mother called up the stairs: “Mary? I have something funny to give you!” I am always interested in getting funny things, so I immediately put down my book and went downstairs.

“Katy gave these to me,” Mom said, handing me two certificates on heavy cardstock. “She found them going through some boxes. I guess Mrs. Esser asked Katy to give them to you but she forgot. Isn’t that funny? They’re from 1996!”

Katy is my second mom in Winterset; she taught in the school system there for many years. Mrs. Esser was my high school speech and drama coach. Both are extremely responsible women, fully invested in the well-being of every last one of their students, so it’s funny that the certificates never got to me. I don’t remember being frantic about not getting them, so Katy coming across them was indeed amusing and gave me a chance to reflect on my footloose n’ fancy-free days competing in high school speech contests.

Little known fact: I was on the cheerleading squad heading into my freshman year. I knew I was lying to myself and everyone else about this cheerleading business, but I was barely fourteen; how could I know my life? How did I even know how to read at that point? But on the second day of school I saw a flyer: “FALL PLAY AUDITIONS.” My heart raced. The very next day, I left cheerleading practice early, tried out, got a part, and put up my pom-poms forever. I was in love. Leaving cheerleading for The Stage (!) is possibly the only decision in my life I can point to and say “That was unequivocally the right decision.” Everything after that is debatable.

I was hooked, but outside the fall play and the spring musical, the only other outlet for saying stuff to an audience was debate (check) and speech contest; there was no drama club, no community theater in town. So along with some beautiful, geeky, awkward, brilliant friends, I competed in the statewide speech/drama competitions in categories like acting, group ensemble, poetry recitation, extemporaneous speaking, improv, radio announcing, etc.

Our group would travel with Mrs. Esser around the state to Creston or Valley or Roosevelt High along with hundreds of other students and their coaches. The schools would camp out on the gym floor and eat Twizzlers and drink Mt. Dew while each student went to do her or his bouts throughout the day. We’d all wait in physical pain until the clerks came and posted the scores. If you got three 1’s, you went to All-State. I went to All-State a bunch of times and I’m pretty sure I got awards there, too, but obviously the certificates or distinctions were not of lasting importance. What those competitions did was give me a sense of self, a feeling that I had something worth cultivating, a reason to keep reading books, to keep writing poems, to keep learning lines by heart. To keep trying my best, I think, is something I learned doing that for four years.

I threw both of these long-lost certificates away once I scanned the one here into my computer. I’ve lived this long without them and I’ve been all right. Besides, with all these pictures of me on the 1993 J.V. Winterset Huskies cheerleading squad, there’s just no room on the wall…

POST SCRIPT FROM THE EDITORS: The elegant and shrewd Ms. Joan Millman Schnadig pointed out to me that this certificate is exactly twenty years old to the day. June 3rd, 1996 is the date on the certificate — and it’s June 3rd, 2016. I actually wrote this last night, but if you account for the orbit of the Earth and entropy and all, this award was signed exactly twenty years ago today. Fabulous!

 

20 Mar 2016

Lilly’s Big Day Out, Part 3.

by | posted in: Chicago | 0
Lattes on the bus. Photo: Me
Lattes on the bus. Photo: Me

Before I tell you more about Saturday, it’s very important that you know about Lilly’s best friend.

Lilly’s best friend is Aubrey. Aubrey has this thing about purple cats. She has a shirt with a purple cat. She talks about purple cats. And in art class, if the teacher tells the class to draw a tree, for example, Aubrey will draw a tree…with a purple cat underneath it. Aside from being cute and almost suspiciously well-mannered, Lilly has excellent taste in friends.

I joined the girls at their hotel room and when I opened the door, I saw what I was dealing with. Miss Lilly had on a sequined St. Patrick’s Day ballcap, a drapey, pink tunic thing over a t-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots. In other words, she looked amazing. And Gramma Rita was not to be outdone. Her multi-colored dress with a bit of personal tailoring and “Franken-sewing,” as she described it, coordinated with her toenail polish: one toe blue, one yellow, and so on.

We got lattes, not at the Starbucks across the street, but at the nearby Julius Meinl, a killer Viennese coffee joint. This was my first moment of pride yesterday: 9 out of 10 tourists ain’t gonna know about Julius Meinl. Twenty minutes in, and I was already earning my tour guide stripes.

When we got to the Art Institute, I used the Fons family membership card to fly us past the lines for the Van Gogh exhibit. We saw the Chagall window and then found our way down to the miniatures collection. If you take kids to the Art Institute, make a beeline for the miniatures gallery. Lilly loved it, and so she should: think fully-detailed Downton Abbey sets inside boxes smaller than a breadbox. Unreal.

And how do you suppose high tea was? Lilly and Rita and I inhaled a lot of small, caloric food items while sitting in a burgundy leather booth with cloth napkins on our laps. Rita and I had kir royales and before the tall tea trays came, we played a few rounds of Bananagrams, or something that resembled Bananagrams. All I know is that I spelled the word “sitar” and Lilly spelled “fart.” (That didn’t actually happen but don’t you wish it had? Rita, tell Lilly I said that if you think she’ll laugh.)

I think Lilly enjoyed the last activity most: visiting my condo. I remember how cool it was to see how other people lived when I was that age. It was like, “You put cereal in tupperware?” and “You guys have a trampoline???” and “What’s a waterbed?” Lilly looked around my home with great interest. Then Claus came in and everyone met each other. I asked Rita as I walked her out, didn’t she think Claus was handsome? She said that though she has wanted to see a picture since I mentioned him almost a year ago, I’d better not post his picture or someone will try to steal him. He was looking particularly fetching in a black turtleneck yesterday. Perhaps she’s right.

Thank you, Lilly and Rita, for allowing me to share part of the Chicago birthday trip. Many happy returns, ladies. Use lots of hand sanitizer when you get home.