Other Lives I Am Not Living

On my way home from girl's night with Nep I see a few couples at the Thai restaurant on my block. It's 9:30. They're sitting down to dinner. I understand this is a very city thing. I guess people work late and then maybe go to the gym and then by the time the train has taken them home...

I don't have late dinners, so this is a life I am not leading. I can't imagine a possible fork that would have led me to it either.

Right now I could have been on a cruise ship doing more comedy. I think the itinerary would be taking me up the coast of Canada this week. But I opted out. I guess there was the option of staying in Arizona for that teaching job. But I'm somewhat certain it would have crumbled underneath me. I am more than somewhat certain I would have left for Chicago after a year anyway.

There's the version of me who went to Japan instead of grad school. I think she ends up staying for two years, but I'm not entirely sure what she does for work now.

There is a gritty restaurant hostess in the Bay area with friends who don't like me. And probably a Boston babe who wants to move to Chicago.

I think all the possible Alice's ultimately want the same thing and the ones with enough gumption to have gone for it earlier are scared. The ones who are still waiting are hopeful.

Favorite Arizona Fall Memories

Yesterday was no September 22nd. It was muggy. I wore scalloped green shorts to work and a t-shirt to The Goodman at night. The play we saw (Continuity by Bess Wohl) was about climate change, and I couldn't help but feel extra sticky on the walk home.

This is Arizona fall. I had improv rehearsal on Sundays at noon. I often took the holy day as an opportunity to buy myself a Starbucks treat--an iced pumpkin mocha latte. I would hold the cold drink in one hand and steady my handlebars with the other. The little circular tower atop the Fine Arts building. I would look out that window and worry about Act One, Scene Three. Puhg and I wore pajamas to get half price froyo at our favorite place on campus. Or he picked me up for my lunch break during full-day rehearsal for my thesis play. The girls on my comedy team went to that old ranch for a haunted house. Bug couldn't stop talking about her new boyfriend she didn't know if she liked or not. Shell and I had to keep doing the knowing glance game. When the streets were suddenly nutso and I remembered about football. I went to a weird speech tournament alone. I remember being full of Costco muffins and walking up a hill into the parking lot. I rarely asked, "What am I doing here?" I wasn't often sure what to prioritize. I went from the soft white carpet of a condo to orange concrete in a House of V. The sun seemed so powerful I never believed it would go down. The first Tuesday night dramaturgy class that ended in the dark confused me. I didn't have a bike light yet.

First Year Out of College

I've decided I'm going to be one of those people who has an empty inbox. You know. Delete stuff I no longer need. File things I want to save. Be reminded easy what I need to respond to.

I decided this somewhat randomly about two weeks ago. I was at The Writing Center and no students had come in for walk-in tutoring. I had around 17K emails in the the gmail I started in college. This isn't that much maybe. I also have a junk account, two school accounts, and a professional artist account. Maybe I'll deal with those sometime too.

So, first, I used the search bar to weed out advertising junk. I deleted all the "Groupon," "Twitter," "Jamba Juice" hits etc. After destroying as many spams as possible I started working through my cache starting with the oldest messages to the newest.

Right now I have 7,881 emails in my inbox. I have lurched from my freshman year to my first year out of college. It's been weird to my life snippets in a vertical list. That year seems so foreign to my life now, but it was actually incredibly foundational. A flurry of student notes from the Writing Center, navigating a weird boss for an after school program, running my first marathon, all my grad school statements of purpose, a community theatre musical rehearsal emails, indie improv team volleys. Some of it is embarrassing--advice I gave in a very knowing way, hatching my sense of humor, I had no fear, and I substitute taught an English 100 lab for free on Valentine's night.

But, oh, there are precious moments. Long chains with friends who were still friends, pictures from Dusty, and the most charming: a lesson plan for the first improv class I ever taught. The usual teacher for the Level One class at the comedy theatre I performed at couldn't make one week. He asked this other girl and I to cover. We were PUMPED. We went out for pizza beforehand and freaked out about everything we wanted to teach the class. The place was called Suds or something and we sat at a countertop and just gushed about all we loved and hated about improvising. We practically ran to the theatre screeching in excitement. We had both just broken up with our boyfriends.

When we arrived we found only ONE PERSON there for the class--a middle age woman who was pretty nervous. No idea why she took the class, but it was only her second attempt at improv ever. The other girl and I were not deterred. We went full-ham on our plan and took turns being in the scene with the woman. Toward the end of the three hours, I think we were both so eager to act, we just did a ton of three person scenes. We laughed and laughed in that shady, bunk basement room for rent.

Writing Like Your Family Is Dead

Making like no one will love you more or less for making.

I Love Study Hall

The athletes of T College are required three hours of study hall a week. This means as a Writing Center employee I have to be vigilant about clocking basketball & volleyball players in and out. This is the busy season. Maybe there aren't spring sports. I'm actually not sure what all the activities are at this school. I am a typical adjunct; I show up to my class, grade in my office, delete emails not of immediate relevance to me, go home. I don't know what the dean's name is.

Anyway, I love study hall. I'm sure if I was forced to do it I would be annoyed. These students are adults and should be allowed to do homework wherever and whenever they want. But here's whats up:

Many times I have seen four teammates come in and waste time quietly. They need to be shushed once or twice and then they get bored. One of them opens the assignment. They look at it. They raise their hand. "Hey, I actually don't get this. Can you help me?" And I do. I've also observed the one teammate who knows from the jump he needs a ton of help. It makes me happy that his friends are at the same table even if they're goofing off so the situation isn't reversed (they're all out goofing off and the lil nerd ditches his tutoring appointment). Also, they get used to see the other players all the time. I see guys congratulating girls on their games. They say things like "I see you strivin'." I am currently sitting across from a dude who just waved across the center at another guy. He said, "Yo, bro. You doin' study hall? Very cool." Very cool!? Very cool.

So Long Sweet Summer

It's Dashboard Confessional. I am not embarrassed. I wish it had never been laughable--the boys screaming their feelings. The popularity of emo could have been an antidote to toxic masculinity.

For every bright notebook aisle at Target, there's a new orange leaf. The darker sky. Six years ago I started grad school in Arizona. I spent most afternoons by the pool with my Theatre Histories textbook and a highlighter. Today I went to the gym's rooftop pool and read Chapter Three in my teacher's edition Theatre History textbook. It was windy, and I could only bear the chill an hour. I call the Senate Committee and my House Rep to say I support the DREAMers.

I've officially lived in Chicago longer than I was in grad school. This saddens me. It's not a surprise. I've been here, you know, watching the planner pages turn, establishing myself, signing leases. But still it happened so fast. I steadied myself on the last thing I had done. I had just moved from the desert. The other people I meet here--some spent one, two, five years in their cities, but it gets washed away in the machine of big shoulders. I join the slop.

From the moment I stepped off the plane in high school, it was my spot. It's my laptop backdrop. My blue and purple scooter plate hangs over my window. Yesterday Puhg and I went on a Labor Day run. We stopped halfway through just to sit and watch the lake. A baby regatta of boats, a seagull, a plastic bag splat into the water. He says the way I feel about our old place is how he feels about his new place.

Some days I feel it too. The neighborhood abuzz with teeny shops and how I can get from my couch to the A____ for a lime & seltzer with Flood in less than ten minutes. People feel overwhelmed by the city, but when I was in Maine I felt so weird not being able to, at any time, walk to a Walgreens. I do not think about trotting four blocks, taking the train, going down Michigan Avenue, spending thirty minutes in an interview, reversing the whole thing. It's so easy I barely pay attention. I jot lesson plans and ding my Ventra card. I'm at the library now and then I will go back across the street to my apartment, eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, watch Friday Night Lights, and go do a show at i_.

First Saturday Back

First of all, I got to return to Step class at my gym. It was hard, as it always is after an extended absence. At a water break I asked the instructor to re-demonstrate the switchkick turn, and three women around me all (at the same time) told me how to do it. Isn't it infuriating to be told how to do something even when you have asked? And, by the way, why do people like telling others what to do? I don't. Which is funny because I'm the teacher.

I showered. Pug and I sat on the couch and talked over morning yogurt, a ritual I missed. We keep up when we're apart, but the conversations are more like maps and less like landscape. I convince him to walk with me to a new coffee shop, where I set up camp for lesson planning. After an hour I head to the train. While I wait a man starts addressing people on the platform asking the question "Why?" a lot. It's hard to hear him. At first he is ignored since he's ranting. He's holding a Dunkin bag and a large iced coffee with cream. He lays down on the platform over the line folks are not supposed to cross. Another older man walks up and tries to talk to him. He is batted away. I get closer. I want to kneel down and say, "Don't do this here," but I don't know his mental state and am worried he might throw me into the tracks. The board says the next Red Line to 95th is in one minute. Someone presses the help button. Someone else is making a call. "They'll put me back in jail," the man says. The train is now arriving. Someone at the end of the platform waves his arms wildly to the conductor. I bark, "Sir, please get up." In the nick of time, someone the fella by the ankles, and pulls him to safety. The dude, still on the ground, yells, "You almost spilled my coffee!" to which his savior rolls his eyes. I get on a different car and practice Japanese on an app.

I attend a producers workshop for marketing one's comedy show. I learn a couple things. Several men, not running the workshop, offer a lot of unsolicited advice to everyone n attendance. Again, I wonder what the appeal is. I go across the street for a Whole Foods salad and purchase a scone to eat between shows at night.

While home I have a little time to work on my book before curling my hair, changing into a new blouse, and heading to SC. On my commute I think about how we use Twitter, how I use Twitter, microaggressions, and how important but also stupid recognizing said microagressions are. It's my first show in Chicago since mid-July. The audience gives us "IHOP: The Musical" as our title. The singing feels good. The singing brings renewal. I call an Uber.

At the next theatre's greenroom I am met by some unusual faces. People from New York and LA visiting, jumping in on the fun. We do two acts of improv. It is okay. I am happy to be there though. Puhg comes and during something particularly funny I look out at him to see if he laughed. He's munching a french fry. He is standing at the bar when it is over. We take a car home.