winter camping

who reads this anymore? if you do, thank you for persevering. today, i will tell you all about my bout with Winter Camping. hang in there, it's a long one.

i belong to a chicago backpackers group through meetup.com. i loved camping as a kid and have done it fairly consistently since i was old enough to schlep my friends to campsites in the area and roast marshmallows and get rained on. but backpacking and camping are really two separate things. i never really thought about backpacking until i met my husband. he is an Eagle Scout and has been all over with a pack on his back. he would tell me stories about him and his dad and brother hiking in to all these strange places, with only the packs on their back to sustain them. food, clothing, shelter. waking up with rattlesnakes in their boots. seemed like fun (well, maybe not the rattlesnakes). i was curious to know if i could get by camping like that.

over the years, we went camping, but "car camping," as scott called it. you throw everything in your car, drive to a campsite, set up, and sit around and drink. you don't have to pack light. you can bring that huge, 4 person tent for two people. bring that cooler, full-size pillow, four pairs of pants, three pairs of shoes. you want a camp chair? hell, yeah, throw that in there, too. my step-mother brings her whole house when she "camps," packing things in those 50-gallon plastic tubs. even i thought that was a bit much. but only the size of your car limited you on how much stuff you could bring. watching my friends car camp made me think about how extravagant it all was. the only "roughing it" part was sleeping on the ground... and then most of us had air mattresses.

then i was introduced to the Chicago Backpacking group. i met a friend who would talk about his adventures of real backpacking. camping, hiking, actually roughing it. so i joined the group. signed up for a bootcamp to see how it would go. rented a pack from REI and found the night before, that it didn't fit around my hips. awesome. 8pm the night before the trip and i didn't have a pack. this wasn't a good sign. went BACK to REI and found a sale pack that was perfect. ok, things were looking up. crammed everything into that pack that i would need and away we went.

aside from the copious amounts of hills, i survived that trip. and fell in love with the concept of packing only what you need to survive. nothing extra. everything you need must fit in that pack. there's not much wiggle room. no tent fans, no huge lanterns, no camp stoves. so really, i fell in love with the gadgets. tiny stoves, wee pillows, lightweight tents, minimalist sleeping bags. the less your pack weighed, the better. i bought real hiking shoes. hiking pants. a 2 lb sleeping bag. a 2 lb tent. a cooking pot that doubles as an insulated cup and storage for your tiny stove and propane canister. the key is versatility.

i signed up for a summer pack and paddle in august. we hike in, sleep over, then the next day, drop our packs off with a guy who gives us kayaks, and we paddle back. it was awesome. we all sit around and talk about gear and being outdoors and what we do and all that rot. most of these people i have never met before. it was on this trip that one of the organizers was talking about winter camping. i said, if you organize a trip, i'll go.

finally, i december, i see a trip pop up for an overnight winter trip that included a candlelight ski event. hell yeah. that looked awesome. so i signed up. the only real thing i would need to get was a better sleeping bag. my 40 degree wasn't going to cut it. after debating whether to buy a better bag or a thermal liner, i just ended up asking a friend to borrow his. that way, if it sucks, then i haven't thrown any money away. his bag is 15 degrees, which i thought would be perfect for this trip. the low both night was supposed to be 25-30 degrees. perfect.

i packed two pairs of long underwear, fleece-lined tights, an extra sleeping pad, windproof pants, real snow boots, wool socks. i had bought snow pants, but thought that it might be too warm for those. so with everything planned out, i packed and headed out.


my stuff. blue stuff sack full of clothes, pink stuff sack full of food, green apple bag, full of loose incidentals. 

Day 1
we car camped the first night at Ottawa Lake in Wisconsin. driving into a campsite in January is reminiscent of a horror movie. it's dark and desolate. it seems like there's a hint of humanity in the plowed roads, but there isn't a person in site. finally, i saw one car. i stopped and asked if he was part of the backpacking group. this is where everyone in the audience starts yelling at the screen to turn back. but he applied to the affirmative and i pulled in.

it was cold friday night. probably 25, but the wind was brisk. after stomping down the snow in the area i had claimed, i commenced setting up my tent in the dark. with gloves on. used a mallet to get the tent stakes in because the ground was frozen. got my pack from the car and started throwing stuff in the tent. pad, sleeping bag, clothes. i could barely feel my hands. as i was crawling about in the tent to set up the sleeping bag, with my knees scrunching in the snow beneath the tent floor and my booted feet in the snow outside the tent, i wondered again what the fuck i was thinking when i signed up for this trip.

my tent has paper-thin walls. that's what makes it so lightweight. it also has mesh that goes almost all the way down to the floor. some tents have thicker material that comes up a few inches that would prevent a breeze from blowing in your face while you're laying in your sleeping bag in 19 degree wind chill. mine didn't have that. i could lay in my bag and stare directly out into the wintery landscape. also, my rain fly didn't come all the way down to the ground. so i was getting a little nervous about how warm i would be while sleeping.

people started to show up. Lindsey and Curtis. Rachel and Kelly. Nadia and Sarah. Brandon and Marion. sonja, the main organizer, had to back out because she was sick. tents were set up, beer was brought out, plastic water flasks that held whiskey were passed around. Mark was trying to light this coleman stove from the 1960s that he had found in his storage unit. jet boils were brought out and dinner was consumed. i ate the other half of my subway. a fire was started and i tried to keep my biscuits warm. wood smoke and i don't get along, so i had to strategically position myself to prevent myself from sneezing. my eyes burned and watered, and tears froze on my cheeks. really, what the hell was i thinking.

after a while and a half-ass attempt at making a warming bottle for the sleeping bag, i called it a night. nothing like crawling into an ice cold sleeping bag. the bottle started to leak, so that was out. plus it was already cold by the time i finally got my shit together and got myself in the bag. my toes were frozen. my ass and thighs were frozen. this was going to be fun.

i finally decided to put on the fleece sleep pants i had brought along. have you ever tried to dress yourself while ensconced in a mummy bag? you feel like a fat inch worm having a seizure. i finally got the pants on with much effort, the good side effect being that my feet were no longer cold. my ass, on the other hand, was still numb. i broke out the Tom Skilling snuggy that i grabbed at the last minute (i know, i know, this really wasn't a necessity, but it turned out that it was) and crammed that down in the bag, too. finally, i was starting to warm up. in addition to my hat, two neck warmers, and my two layers on top, nestled about 2 feet into the bag (it's a long bag, my friend is tall) i was finally able to get warm.

now if i could only get comfortable. sigh.

toss. get cold. turn. get cold. wrestle with the liner and the snuggy. get hot. stick your head out of the bag for fresh air. get cold. move. lose warm spot on the sleeping pad. the never-ending struggle. i finally fell asleep. then...

the call of nature.

and not nature #1, either. the jerk.

wriggle out of the bag into the cold. unzip the tent (which, because you put it up in the dark, is set up a little cock-eyed, so the zipper is hard to work because it isn't taught), cram the boots on without getting snow in the tent, unzip the rain fly, stand up without taking the tent with you, zip up the tent, zip up the fly. crunch down the icy road to the pit toilet. feel the cold breeze coming up from the pit toilet. crunch back, do everything in reverse. get back in the bag without shoving liner all the way in the bottom of the bag (fail). try to wrap snuggy around you without pulling arm out of the socket. check the time and wonder how much longer you have to do this until the sun comes up. wish you hadn't been the second one to pull into the camp site because now your car is blocked in and you can't make a run for it. realize it's only 1:30am and you have a good 5 hours to go. sigh and try to fall asleep.

Day 2
i woke up at 7am. people (cough, Doug) were snoring. my face was puffy from the wood smoke and sleeping on the ground. i could see my breath in the tent. yeah, i didn't want to get out. i was finally warm. but i was also hungry. so i got up and did the boot/tent shuffle.


that's snow outside of my tent. mesh all the way down, rainfly not even close to the ground


boots outside. snow. me, not wanting to get up. eyes swollen and red from wood smoke. 

the day's activities were going to varied by group. one group was going to pack up their crap and head over to Lapham Peak and backpack overnight there. the other group was going to stay put in Ottawa. Lindsey was supposed to go backpacking, but she said she didn't feel like breaking down her stuff and decided to stay. a few others followed her lead. i could understand that decision. if i hadn't already deflated my sleeping pad and stuffed my sleeping bag, i probably would have stayed put, too. the one thing holding me back: no toilet. but then sarah said that there was a pit toilet at the backpack site in Lapham. fine, i'll go.

this is about the time i realized who Brandon is. Brandon is a guy whom i met five years ago while working at Starbucks in Uptown. he would come in often and sit at the bar next to the espresso machine and chat. we ended up becoming friends. i tried to help him with some design stuff he was working on, but it was beyond my expertise. then he started to ask me out to lunches and dinners and i felt like he wanted it to be a bit more. eventually, i left that starbucks and he slipped from my memory.

he showed up at this trip. how random is that? i didn't even know he was into backpacking. and i guess he's been doing it a while. he knew all about the backpacking site we were going to and details about the park. he didn't end up staying a second night because he had to be back in the city. but what a small world. seriously.

so the people who are leaving pack up. the ones who are staying watch us. eventually, we all trundle over to Lapham Peak to hang out. the whole group hiked into the backpacking site, which was about two miles from where we parked. we kept going and going and going. i was in the front, which was a bad idea, because i had no idea where the turn off was for the campsite. i thought there would be a sign or something. nope. walked right past it. after about another 15-20 minutes, someone was like, "hey, did we pass it?" so we all turned around and went back. and there was the sign. thanks, Lapham. we trudged into camp and surveyed the land. picnic table, privy, fire pit. works for me. i picked a place under a few pine trees and commenced the stomping of the snow. setting up the tent during the day would be better. i could make the rainfly tight so i didn't have to yell at it every time i needed to get out.


tent set up at Lapham Peak. I look so smug.

once the tents were set up, we went back down to where we parked the cars and decided what to do. sarah and i were going to cross country ski, the rest of the group would hike and cause general shenanigans. we split and agreed to meet back at the warming house at designated times. i went to rent my skis. the ski hut was run by two 17-year-old boys. for $25, they hooked me up with skis, boots, and poles. i dragged them out to the trail and met up with sarah, who had her own skis. i proceeded to click the toe of my boots into the skis.... and nothing. tried again. nope. again and again and again. nope, nope, nope. sarah tried. nope. i could not get my goddamn boot into these skis. i'm no dummy, but i know how skis work. we finally decided that there was something we were missing about these binding, so i grabbed my gear and marched back to the ski hut. i walked in, walked up to the blond kid and said, "how do you put these on?"

he chuckled. "i guess i should have shown you how to do that, huh?"

hahah. yeah, maybe.

you lift up the tip of the binding. that opens up the slot to put your shoe in. sigh. people are dying of cancer and this is what research we're doing: fucking with the years-old tradition of ski bindings.

so, that problem being solved, i couldn't wait to get out and get my ski on. so i got my skis on. and holy shit, were they slick. as in slippery. as in, i looked like a toddler trying to skate for the first time. i'd glide forward, and the ski would slip back. or they would slide sideways. this isn't my first skiing rodeo... i've enjoyed this sport before. i'm also a fine roller blader. but damn, this was turning out to be tricky. sarah was on her way, gliding along. i was jerking along behind her, like a spastic clown. it didn't help that the tracks were ice. i tried to ski out of the tracks. i tried to ski in the tracks. the tracks were better. they prevented me from sliding sideways more. the trick, i would find out later, would be going up hill. i couldn't. i couldn't get enough momentum to go up. so i turned my skis out and tromped up that way. but on one hill, that didn't work either. here's how it played out: slide backwards. fall. slide some more on butt. hoist myself up with poles and brute upper arm strength (insert laughter here). repeat. finally i got the big idea to take the damn skis off and walk up the hill and then put the skis back on. christ.

and on it went. poor sarah. she was so patient. she works with pre-school kids, so she's probably used to dealing with this kind of stuff. at one point, she wanted to go up and around part of another trail, but i had no desire to drag this out any longer than necessary, so she went off my herself. i took the short cut, managed not to fall, and met up with her at the pass. there were some down hills that were impressive that i managed not to fall on. the speed was fun. and i think by sheer will (and hip strength) i managed not to eat ice on those hills.


this is my "this sucks but i'm making the most of it" smile while skiing. 

and then we were done with skiing, and not a moment too soon. we all met at the warming hut and drove to a closer parking lot to the campsite. it was supposed to rain on Sunday and we didn't want to hike any farther than necessary on the way out. we grabbed some firewood that was behind the pit toilet and headed down the trail. there were five of us staying over at Lapham, me. sarah, nadia, kelly, and our sole male, curtis. curtis had all the good gadgets. he had a ratchet strap that he wrapped around some logs and dragged them along the trail. he also had a cool glow stick flashlight and a french press for his JetBoil. now that's a serious backpacker.

so we got back to the site. we sat and ate a bit. and i started to get cold. i was wearing fleece-lined tights under waterproof, windproof pants. and i got pretty sweaty while skiing. so my tights are soaked. but i don't notice. i just knew that i was getting cold and i that kept thinking if we got a move on towards the candlelight ski event, that i would warm up.

nope. we walked and my ass and thighs got colder. we climbed the tower and noticed all of the traffic for the event. and my lower region got colder. we walked to the building that was hosting the event and i was freezing. we went inside and i thought, "finally, i can warm up." we got a table and sat down and enjoyed watching the hundreds of people come and go. but my legs are frozen. nadia offered me her fleece pants. i accepted. i took off my waterproof pants. and that's when i found out that the pants were all wet on the inside, as were my fleece leggings. shit. until i get dry, there was no way i was going to warm up.


inside the warming house during the candlelight ski event. 

i wiped down the inside of the pants. i stood outside by the bonfire, and that helped. but every time i stepped away, the cold would just seep back in. the group wanted to walk the candle-lit trails and i felt warm enough, so we set off. and within a few minutes, my legs were just as cold as before. it was really irritating. if i just would have changed after skiing, i'd be fine. but nope.

i ended up cutting the trail walk short so i could go back to the warming house. the rest (except nadia, who kept me company. what a trooper) went on to do the full mile loop. i stood by the fire again and attempted to warm my biscuits. finally, the rest of the group came back and we headed back to the campsite.

there is something to be said about being the only people staying on-site at Lapham. the event was packed, 2,500 people in the park were enjoying the candlelight ski and hike. after it was done, everyone else left in their cars, but we were staying. it was a cool feeling. hiking back down the trail in the dark, in the snow, knowing that you're going to stay out in a tent on a night that some people wouldn't even go outside. granted, it was 37 degrees, which was much warmer than the previous night, but still. when we told people that we were camping, people were impressed. and i guess i was impressed with myself for not having backed out. i had several opportunities, but i really wanted to know what it was like. this same trip last year was only a one night car camping trip. maybe i shouldn't have jumped in with a two night trip and backpacking. but i felt that i had done something substantial. something that, had it been on my bucket list, i would have been able to cross off.

of course, after all that, i was honestly just happy that it was my last night in the cold.

we got back to the site and i peeled off my outer pants and my fleece-lined tights. my skin was really cold and clammy. yargh. even in the open air, my skin felt warmer than in those wet tights. live and learn, i guess. i put some dry tights on, put on my Homer Simpson tangled in Christmas lights fleece sleep pants on and felt 100% better. ahhhhhh. we attempted to make a fire. i heated up water for my hot water sleeping bottle and tried not to fall asleep. once my water was hot, i headed off to bed.

bed. snort. i mean a cold feather-filled lump of fluff on my sleeping pads, on my tent floor, that's mere centimeters from hard-packed snow. let the fun begin.

the water bottle helped, but with a cold butt and thighs, there is just too much real estate to cover with a tiny 24 ounce bottle. i needed something larger, a human. a space heater. an electric blanket. but eventually, i warmed up. and tucked way down where the cold couldn't find me, i finally fell asleep.

i woke up to rain later that night and remembered that sarah was sleeping out in her bivvy sack with her tarp under her, rather than over her. she said the next day that right after she got done moving the tarp and tying it down, it stopped raining. ha. of course. i woke up again due to nature's call, but i told it to call back later. and i woke up again at 7:30, feeling like a warm, toasty cinnamon bun, not wanting to get out. but alas, it had to be done. so we packed up our stuff, ate breakfast, and headed out.

due to the rain, the trek out was much slipperier than the previous night. i had bought new trekking poles and lent one to Kelly for the trip up and out. Curtis had lost one of his yak trax the night before but had woke up early enough to go back out to relocate it. i had put on three layers of clothes and was finally warm, but by the time we got to the cars, i thought i was going to die of heat exhaustion. some day i'll find that balance between slab of meat and boiled water. i put my pack in my car and, in doing so, tweaked a muscle in my back. and it started to rain. ah, the final forks in a well-done trip.

we all met at a breakfast spot (the Lumber Inn), which was recommended by scott's cousin, Jason, who met us there with his wife, Meghan. it was nice to see them and to have them chat with the group. they are into outdoor sports as well and they fit in well. we all ate with gusto, being happy that this meal wasn't coming out of a bag of some sort. i got cherry almond french toast, which was amazing. lindsey got a bloody mary that had an entire feast stuck in it. others got mimosas. it was well-deserved after a cold weekend.


ew, sausage. only in Wisconsin.

so, i survived. without too much up-fuckery. the fleece tights incident aside, i did pretty well. could i have done better? of course. i would have brought a warmer sleeping bag and a better-covered tent. but that's probably about it. i brought enough food. i had the right clothes. i packed exactly what i needed and even had room left over. did the fact that i had my car nearby to put crap in? probably. but i didn't even take that into consideration when i packed at home. some people who car camped brought camping chairs and large stoves, but that never even crossed my mind. i was in backpacking mode.

the real questions is will i do it again? probably not. the sheer effort that it takes to get warm and stay warm is just too much. the inconvenience of being out in the cold all day long takes its toll. it's one thing to be setting up or taking down. or actively hiking or skiing or what-have-you. but the worst parts are when you're just sitting. while you're eating, before bed, when you wake up. if you don't have a source for heat, you're going to get cold. bone-seeping cold. and that i just cannot abide.

but who knows? never say never, right?


the group on Saturday morning before getting to the backpack site at Lapham. 
Nadia, me, Mark, Doug, Brandon, Irena, Kelly, Marion, Lindsey, Sarah, Rachael, and Curtis.

tomorrow i start a new job. my last real job was a temporary two-year gig at Pearson Education. it was nice, i knew the place and the people and it was easy to get to.

i left pearson and started working on the magazine full time while i was on unemployment. i also got a part-time gig at the local library. worked at the information desk helping people find books, answer questions, organize, do history crap. it was pretty awesome. especially because i was also getting unemployment.

turned out that unemployment only lasts 6 months these days. so i needed more money. i managed to squeak by from february to october, but then started back up at starbucks. suburban starbucks are totally different than city starbucks. more volume, more people, drive-thrus. 9 people on the floor at a time. and they're all doing something. headsets. label machines. they really are odd ducks. in the city, we might go through one mocha bag a day. out here, we go through three. at least.

but the money wasn't enough. if we ever wanted to redo the bathroom or go on vacations, i would need to be making more than $28k a year. with paid vacations. and maybe benefits. plus i was running up my credit cards and using money from our savings. i was living paycheck to paycheck... something i hadn't done since i was in college. scott and i don't share money, so i felt the pinch of having to pay half the mortgage plus some utilities and all of my bills. at one point, i was down to less than $100 in my checking account.

i had applied for one job in the city, but it was a library job. i was thisclose to getting it, too. but nope. i tried not to get my hopes up, but they snuck up after i found out that they had called the library as a reference. most people said it was a slam dunk. but it wasn't. they wrote me an email to tell me that they had chosen something else, but it had been close. i wonder what had tipped the scales.

so i kept applying. to graphic design jobs, mostly. most of them i am unqualified for. i am not a digital guru. i don't have an impressive portfolio. i don't like doing marketing or logos or branding. i am not your typical graphic designer. i do publishing. i design books. pages. i love doing graphs and charts. i love making everything uniform. i love cleaning up other people's messes. i do enjoy prototyping, but i'd rather make templates. shit that people can use.

so i finally landed a gig at FTD, the flower people. i'm surprised at how many people don't know who FTD is. they're in Downer's Grove, so it will be a commute. it's doing design and production. and that's all i know. i do know that i'll be starting new... again. yet again. always new. never seasoned. never with seniority. never with power or respect or a knowledge base that is useful. always new. and i'm fucking sick of it. i am tired of not being valuable. i am tired of be so dissatisfied or unneeded.

here are a list of the full-time jobs i've had:
international minute press, ann arbor. oct 1995-dec 1999. resigned because i was moving to chicago.
heinemann library, chicago. dec 1999-apr 2004. laid-off.
world book encyclopedia, chicago. jul 2004-feb 2005. resigned.
mcgraw-hill publishers, chicago. feb 2005-feb 2006. temporary.
starbucks, chicago. feb 2006-april 2007. resigned.
american library association, chicago. aug 2006-sep 2009. fired.
pearson, glenview. nov 2009-feb 2010, mar 2010-jun 2010, nov 2010-april 2011, aug 2012-aug 2014. temporary.

maybe this job will be awesome and i'll never leave and i'll be able to retire from it with 20+ years under my belt. sigh.

flash out of date

so am i.

i moved out to elgin in august of 2014. yeah, it's ok. but what i am noticing is the disappearance of my friends. people don't text me first anymore. i feel like i constantly reach out to people, text text poke email FB instagram. i might get a smiley face or a few words in return.

part of me feels like moving out here and losing my job has been like a slow death. so this is what would happen if i died. people would just move on without me. i thought i was cool. i thought i was nice. i thought i made a difference in people's lives. i guess not.

so what does it take? what does it take to be someone that someone would miss? that someone would miss enough to reach out to? to actually admit that they miss me and tell me such a thing? i shouldn't have to be present in someone's life every fucking day in order to be acknowledged.

ordinarily, i would be at my knit night in Chicago, but i am sick as a dog. so i am at home. i usually ask a few people if they're going to be at lisa's. but the one time i'm not there, does anyone ask me where i am? nope. i am not missed. no one cares if i am not there. if i never went back, it wouldn't even be noticed. my absence is nothing.

i was hanging out with a friend who is clearly in that apathy camp. i ask all these questions, trying to get a feel for what's going on in their life, even when the conversation takes a turn to a single subject that i just don't give a shit about. this person almost never asks about my life. i realized a few weeks ago that i'm really just a place-holder. someone to take up time until a better friend comes along. someone that they might enjoy more. you know what else is a place-holder? the number zero. i am zero to this person. and if this were the only person i was a zero for, maybe it wouldn't bother me so much. but i guess i am a needy stupid piece of shit. i like having friends. i like having people to talk to. i enjoy people who have interesting lives, who have hobbies that they enjoy, even i don't participate in them.

i guess i'm a rarity. maybe i'm just a needy nerd. someone who needs friends so badly that she's willing to sit through BS from someone else who can't take social cues to tell that i'm bored out of my mind talking about certain subjects. but where the hell are all of my friends? where the hell is amy and dawn and kristin and margaret? where the hell is cara and annette and chris and lisa and jenni and barb and rob and bob and shirley? maybe i'm the only who takes "hey, we should do something" seriously.

i guess disappointment is something that an adult should be used to. maybe i'll get a full time job and take classes and be so fucking busy that it won't matter that my friends have all dried up. i'll become famous and rich and not having close friends won't mean anything. or i'll just devote my life to some martial art and get my black belt in 6 months and then kick everyone's ass.

or maybe i'll just sit on the fucking couch, coughing my lungs out, wondering why the hell i'm not missed by anyone. fuck life.

tornado damage

Thursday night, the chicagoland area had some interesting weather. wednesday, it was 45 degrees and boring and gray. thursday, it was 70 degrees, humid as all hell and rainy, with thunderstorms in the morning and a chance for severe weather in the evening. i was working that night at my glass-filled library, so i was especially anxious to see what Mother Nature would bring.

what she brought killed two people and injured 22 with an EF-4 tornado that ripped through about 45 miles west of us. Scott and i went out today to survey the damage. due to road closures in Fairdale, IL, we didn't try to go there. we instead went out US-20 and down to US 64, hoping to catch a stripped tree or something. we got a lot more than that.

Fairdale aerial

Farm off of IL-64 before

Farm off of IL-64 after

Grubsteaker's before

Grubsteaker's after

Grubsteaker's before

Grubsteaker's after

Field on IL-64 before

Field on IL-64 after

Home on IL-64 before

Home on IL-64 after

Home on IL-64 before

Home on IL-64 after

Home on IL-64 before

Home on IL-64 after

Home on IL-64 after (no before pic)

Home on IL-64 after (no before pic)

Farm on 251 before

Farm on 251 after

Farm on 251 before

Farm on 251 after

House on Lindenwood before

House on Lindenwood after

House on Lindenwood before

House on Lindenwood after

Trees on Lindenwood before

Trees on Lindenwood after

Debris field on Lindenwood

Debris field on Lindenwood

Flattened field on Lindenwood

House on Mulford before

House on Mulford after

Aerial photo of House on Mulford after

adult responsibilities

once you grow up, some of the responsibilities are obvious. job, bills, family. mow your lawn. feed your kids. clean your house.

one of the responsibilities that a lot of people don't think of is keeping up with friends. keeping up friendships through major stages of your life can be really hard. there are not a lot of people who are still best friends with people that they met in grade school. people change, values change, desires and hopes change. sometimes people can't hold onto friends for a year, let alone 20 years.

i am incredibly lucky in that i have a lot of friends. some are closer than others, but in a pinch, i have a lot of people i can rely on. i think one of the reasons i have a lot of friends is that i moved around a lot. so i learned to be more open, less guarded. if i wanted to meet more people, i needed to be able to talk to people.

but moving also meant losing friends. and i hate losing friends. every person you meet, you take a piece of them with you, and they with you. it's hard to look back and think about all of the friends who have only seen one specific side of me that no one else will see... and i'll never see them again. friends are memory banks of good and bad times. lose one and you lose a piece of history that you may never recover.

but sometimes too much time passes. or you realize that you just don't have much in common anymore. you let that weekly meeting or phone call slide one week... two... a  month. you think of people that you really liked that you never got their email address. they disappear, with no way to recover that information. lost to the ether forever.

the invention of facebook has made things a little easier. but it's still only as good as the people who are on FB. every once and a while, i look up old friends and hope that they're around. some of them are. some are not.

but even if you can't find them on Facebook, at least they are still out there somewhere... on this planet, maybe only a letter or a phone call away if you do some serious research. with the internet, no one is invisible. there is always that ability to find them, talk to them, catch up, say hello and maybe goodbye. know that you made one last effort to reconnect and see how they are doing.

but all bets are off if that person passes away. and that's when it really hits home... all that time you could have spent trying to get in touch, trying to reach out, is now gone. there are no more second chances. and then you realize all of the other friends you haven't spoken to in 20 years. and you try like crazy to get those people corralled like horses. maybe you weren't the best of friends, but they still had similar experiences, you shared a house, took some classes together, swapped crosswords in anthropology class with them. and you want to relive those moments. laugh and cry. try to remember working at Zingerman's, who dated whom, who lived in what room at what time.

i have a memory like a steal vault. i try to capture everything i can just in case i need it in the future for whatever reason. i take memories like snapshots. it's probably because i've moved around a lot and lost a lot. i also try harder than most people to keep in touch with people. some people, tho, i just can't keep track of. those elusive folk who refuse to join Facebook. who refuse to stay in one place for too long. those who marry and change their last names.

i just found out that one of my friends was murdered. she was more of a really close friend to a really close friend, but she was in our circle of friends.

that is one i'll never get back.

i am now rounding up the rest of that circle. so i never lose another.

issues

we bought a house. an older house. circa 1920. it's adorable and great and all that. but, as usual in older homes, there were some upgrades that make me wonder what the fuck the person was thinking when they did it. keep in mind that i am an OCD designer.

1. the kitchen. the cabinets might be original to the house. they've been painted about a million times, this off-white color. they're chipped, dirty and generally kind of disgusting. yet, the previous owners spent money on a HUGE fridge and laminate flooring. there is also a drop ceiling and one of those fluorescent lights. there is an electric stove with no exhaust hood. there is a HUGE window that is original to the house that (get this) doesn't even open. and the windows above the kitchen sink that do open are filled with bugs and spider egg sacks. yay. the garbage disposal gurgles up on the other side of the sink when you turn it on, leaving a ring of chewed up food.

2. the first full bathroom. it's right off the kitchen. because who doesn't love taking a shower while they're cooking a roast 5 feet away? seriously, you could grab a beer from the fridge while you were rinsing your hair. it's a completely functioning bathroom. the fan isn't strong enough to do anything with the moisture, which is probably why the previous owners left a new fan to install. the shower surround is one of those stupid plastic things you find in RVs that have little built in shelves that wouldn't even hold a bar of soap. the shower head is from 1960. there is no outlet in this bathroom, so if you want to dry your hair, you'll have to do it in another room. also, there is a strange window above the toilet that looks out into the stairwell to the basement. what the hell is that all about? unless you're over 6'5", you can't see in from the stairs, but still. what the hell were they thinking?

3. the living room and dining room. there are 9 windows in this expanse of room. 3 of them open. they are original to the house, wooden, and use weights to open them. most of the screens don't lock open and fall out when you try. but, for the most part, they just don't open. the floor is old and needs to be sanded and resealed. in the humidity, they get sticky. there used to be a rug in the center of the room, so the floors are different colors. oh, and the dining room floor is a totally different color altogether. there is also no coat closet. who the fuck builds a goddamn house and doesn't put in a coat closet? so now we have about three boxes worth of shit that will just sit there until we figure out what to do with them. and i can't wait to have all that wet, smelly shit hanging around out in my living room.

4. upstairs. there are three bedroom, a bathroom, and some mystery room upstairs. the light in the stairway doesn't work. there is a sconce at the bottom of the stairs that is turned on by a light switch right next to it. that's it. there isn't another switch to it upstairs. there is hallway light that actually works. there is a bank of lights that have been positioned on the wall crookedly and IT DRIVES ME CRAZY.  seriously? how's about a using a level next time, chump? there is carpet on the stairs that is super dirty at the bottom and gets cleaner as you go up. there is carpet in all of the rooms except the bathroom.

5. the bathroom. what. the. fuck. it has a bathtub with no shower. there is 3 feet between each of the sink and the toilet and both of the front and back walls. there is a vent RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM. right in front of the toilet. there is some strange plaster wall treatment made to look like bricks up to about 5 feet up the wall, then it's painted sherbet orange. the toilet paper holder is 3 feet from the toilet. the tub drains like the plumbing is full of 100 years of hair. the pedestal sink is small, too small to really put more than a soap dispenser, and there is no counter anywhere. there is a medicine cabinet that might just be original to the house, with florescent lighting up both sides and a two-prong plug under it. it's pretty sweet, but it buzzes like a swarm of bees. and that outlet is the only one in the bathroom. the door also doesn't swing all the open because it bang into the half-wall that the tub faucet is built into. the whole room sends me into fits when i have to go in there.

6. the mystery room. i found out from a guy who used to live here that this strange room used to be a kitchen when the house was multi-unit. and now we've noticed a distinct odor of syrup in there. it has windows that are high up on the wall, wood paneling, and short brown carpet, like the kind you would find in a waiting room from the 70s. i have no idea what part of the house that room was before it was  the world's smallest kitchen. right now, it holds our filing cabinet. it may hold a cat in the near future.

7. the attic. the attic is not finished. it has wiring that is original to the house, which i'm sure could burn this place down in a new york minute. other than that, it has nothing but two little wooden-framed windows that peek out over the 'hood. oh, and it's not insulated.

8. the basement. it's a full, unfinished basement. there is a laundry room (with no appliances as of yet), a work room, a large main room, and a small room we refer to as the Tiki Room. this small room has been paneled in strips of bamboo, cut in half and nailed to the walls. there is a shelf in there that has a Triumph with Foghat concert ticket laminated to it. it also has hooks hanging from the ceiling. it's a strange room.

the work room has water in it, leaking from where the wall meets the floor. it's probably because the drain on the outside of the house goes directly into the ground instead of away from the house. the large room has the water heater and furnace in it. the laundry room has a clothes chute, which is pretty cool. it's made of old bead board, so it may be original to the house. there is also a strange little closet down there that looks like a public bathroom at a forest preserve that used to be an old bathroom. and in the corner of the room, on the other side of the laundry sink, a makeshift shower. oh, and our electricity panel(s) are down in the laundry room. that will go in a later list.

we also have a front yard, which, as we figured out on Monday, is home to a hornet's nest. our front porch is awesome. our driveway is in need of some asphalting. the garage is old but has a new door that occasionally likes to open again on its own. there is a yard that half paved with asphalt from the driveway, the other half is grass of some sort. the only two trees are in the front yard, covered in bees.

there is also a back stairway that was probably put on in the late 20s or 30s. the door from the interior is on the landing to the stairs, which is hard to get open with the high-pile carpeting being in the way. the stairway down is encased in bead board with a window and a light fixture that's pretty old. it goes down to our back porch, but the door down there is blocked off with rocks so you can't open it. it has its own doorbell, which we're fairly certain doesn't work.

and then there's the electrical. we figured out that this house has had a partial upgrade at some point, probably in the 60s. some of the outlets are grounded, about one in each room. the rest of the outlets have three prong plug covers, but the third hole is useless (that's what he said). we also only have 100 amp service, which wouldn't be worrisome if every fucking appliance in this house wasn't electric. the stove (sigh), the AC, the water heater... it's all electric. oh, and the dryer, once we get one. anyway, i have dreams of updating our stove and dryer to gas, so maybe that would lower the load, but who knows how much that would cost. everything costs something.

oh, and then the cats. they're totally freaking out. i took Fin to the vet yesterday to get him looked at because he wasn't eating. now loki isn't eating. christ. like we need anymore stress.

anyway, we can only do one thing at a time. first unpack. then get the electricity fixed. then win the lottery. then redo the bathroom upstairs. then redo the kitchen. then have a nervous breakdown.

angry

i think i am angry. angry over losing my job. anger over the fact that i've been doing this shit for 20 years and i still have gotten nowhere. having a job is like a relationship. you gain some knowledge, but when it's all said and done, you are back to square one. i guess the different is that we don't have resumes for relationships. that would be funny.

anyway, i go back to the drawing board on august 15. i have known this for... well, since i started, really. and let me be honest, i hate my job. i hate the small, cover-yer-ass crap i do on a daily basis. we play more of the blame game than any other position i have been in. it's really ridiculous how much time we spend pointing fingers instead of getting shit done.

but i am in love with the people here. i don't know how they have such a crappy work environment yet manage to have a bunch of awesome people. they are cool and laid back. it's like we all have Stockholm Syndrome and we know it. learned helplessness. and we bitch about the inefficiencies here. we complain about how we outsource almost everything and our building is half empty. the craft room and the photo studio is gone. no more PIC. no more production department. we've been parted out like an old car and yet we still run. because we all like what we do. just most of us wish we didn't have to do it for this place.

anyway, most of these people i won't ever see again. i have been coming back for 4 years, but i have the magazine now. i don't think that i want another full time job like this, so i don't know if i'll be back. it's like high school graduation: you'll keep in touch with the people you want to. and you don't have to put up with the people you don't like anymore.

but i feel like when i did when i couldn't graduate from college with my friends. most of them left the summer of 1996, my boyfriend among them. then my best friend moved into his old apartment and took his room. i rattled around that town and that apartment like a ghost in purgatory. i didn't know what to do with myself. then my best friend moved to chicago. and when i finally was able to go back to school, i was all alone in a place that used to be my sanctuary. but now it was like a prison. i had no reason to be there, it wasn't fun anymore. i would walk past the imaging studio and expect to see steve's coat or bag slung over the back of a chair. i would see my friend's artwork up all over the place. places we've hung out. i was left behind.

and i feel the same way now. everyone fun is gone. and now i sit here with nothing to do. i hate this feeling. anxious, irritated, restless. forgotten. invisible. i still have friends here, don't get me wrong. but no one to really talk to. and you don't see it coming. you know that it will suck without your friends, but you don't realize how different it's going to be. you don't know until you're in it. and i am in it. trying not to be a nuisance to the people around me, yet trying not to go crazy with boredom.

oh, and we might not get the house because of this. if they know i'm out in less than a month, we might be screwed. i hate this so much.

a friend's birthday

today is a friend's birthday. she would have been 37. she passed away on November 9, 2012.

we were friends by circumstance. we moved into the same building at the same time. she was funny, sarcastic, nice, sincere, and welcoming. we watched each others cats when we went on vacation. we would stop and gossip about the neighborhood happening when we saw each other. she enjoyed mowing the lawn with our annoying push mower. she helped out around the condo building. she taught me how to make monkey bread and i then gained 20 pounds. she was always fun to talk to.

i hate writing this in the past tense.

November 9 was fairly normal. it was a friday. i had stayed home sick from work that day. that night, while we were getting ready for bed, we heard sirens. this is nothing new in our 'hood, so we ignored it. until they got closer. and closer. and stopped. right in front of our building. it was a fire truck. they broke out a stretcher and other stuff and headed inside to the building next to ours. i also notice a white car, illegally parked at the corner with its flashers on. it had been there for about 30 minutes.

my thought process: there were stoner North Park University kids on the first floor. maybe someone fell and hurt themselves or decided that pot was a gateway drug and OD'd on something harder. friends, bill and laura, lived on the second floor. the wife has a medical condition and they have a toddler child. maybe something happened to one of them. and my friend lived on the third floor. i'm sure nothing was wrong with her. she was 35, no kids, active. she just ran a half-marathon.

after while, the firemen came back out with the stretcher. i thought that meant that whatever was happening was OK, taken care of, and that they were going to be on their merry way. never mind that a police car had just pulled up. and an ambulance. we went to bed. it was about 11pm.

on a lark, i checked my text messages before laying down. it was a text from bill. "you should come down here." so i pulled on some clothes and shoes and went downstairs.

bill was at the door. a policeman was hovering about. bill says, "shannon's dead."

excuse me? what?

the policeman comes over and says that shannon's boyfriend hadn't heard from her all day. and she hadn't gone into work or called in, which is very unlike her. so he came over around 10pm to see what was going on. she was laying on the couch watching TV, or so it seemed. turns out she had died sometime the previous night. they suspected an aneurism.

while i was standing there in shock, more cars pull up. her college and work friends start showing up. the chicago police had contacted the police in boston, where shannon's family lives. they called her friends in chicago to come see what was going on. they knew more about her previous comings and goings. meanwhile, the boyfriend was still upstairs talking with police. shannon was dead on her floor.

at some point, the firemen and policemen start clearing out. one of them asks, "have you seen the cat?" they think her cat, Gizmo, got out with all of the doors being propped open. my last wish for a deceased friend was to find her cat.

we searched until 2am. scott and i looked high and low. her friends also helped look throughout the neighborhood. it was an unseasonably warm night, probably in the low 60s, so it wasn't bad to be outside. we thought we saw a cat, we chased it through alleys until it disappeared. then we saw another one that was hiding under the bridge by the river. we tried to coax it out, but it was having nothing to do with us. that was unlike gizmo, who was the sweetest, friendliest cat on the face of the planet. but being freaked out can do strange things to a cat.

we searched until we found a dead kitten in one of the alley ways. after that depressing display of failure, we went home and went to bed.

i saw the coroner's truck. i heard the commotion of them taking her body down the stairs. i decided that i didn't want to see them put her in the back of the truck. bill saw everything. i guess he and laura also heard everything, including when the boyfriend came over and realized that she was dead. they heard him yelling her name over and over. i guess he tried to do CPR on her, so he put her on the floor of her living room. i just can't imagine hearing that. or, hell, being her boyfriend and having to do that.

we continued to look for gizmo. i would sit out on the embankment of the river and keep an eye out. i put out cat food. i put up posters and posted on Everyblock and Facebook. i was deeply saddened by the fact that shannon would lose her cat on the same day she lost her life.

then came a text from one of her friends. gizmo was in the condo!! turns out he had hidden himself away when the police and fire people were tromping through. i guess her friends and her parents were in shannon's living room and out saunters gizmo, like nothing was wrong. oh my god, i think i collapsed with relief. they let me and scott come over one last time and say goodbye to that fluffy, squeaky gray cat.

it was a terrible ordeal. i can't imagine what it's like for her real friends and family. to know that i would never see her or talk to her again. i would never see her mowing the lawn or picking up trash around the 'hood again. no more condo meetings made better because she was there.

and today is her birthday. i am friends with one of her friends that i met through this whole thing. she posted a pic of her and shannon. i went to shannon's facebook and scrolled through to see all of the pictures people have been posting over the past two years. then, while scrolling, went back to the time when she was still alive, posting herself about Obama and Michelle. he had just been reelected and she was so excited about it. it just made me more sad.

anyway, happy birthday, shannon. i hope you're wowing them with your humor, wit, and monkey bread where ever you are.

another amazing hutch

and in looking at the MLS, i found another house in Elgin with the same hutch. this house is going for $180k. it doesn't have the cool ceiling or pocket doors.

house hunting

so, the hubby is sick of the city. and i am sick of being cramped in a 700-square-foot box with no outdoor space.

so, we're looking for houses in the 'burbs. elgin, to be exact. why elgin? because it's quaint. it's not a soulless bedroom community like Schaumburg or Hoffman Estates. it's on the metra line. it's northwest of the city. and we can afford to buy a house there. so there.

we've been looking. we've seen some real shitholes, that's for sure. but we found one that is amazing.

 

It was built in 1901. it's 2,000 sq. ft. it has three bedrooms, 2.5 baths. it has a foyer, an entry hall, a parlor, a living room, a dining room, a sun room. an amazing staircase. original hardwood. a hutch that will make you weep. a huge front porch. a semi-finished basement an walk-up attic you can stand up in. a garage. a tree in the yard that would be perfect for a swing. 

it needs a new roof. the basement has leaks. it doesn't have AC. it has forced air heating and original windows. the kitchen is a hot mess.

we put an offer on it. kind of a low-ball offer, but we figure with the work it needs, it was fair. actually, it wasn't fair at all. this house is amazing. i would pay twice what we offered. scott is a little more hesitant than i am. i am up for the challenge. he sees dollar signs flying out of our savings account.

our realtor emailed us and said that they had gotten another offer on the house. did we want to up ours? i told them that we'd let our offer stand and take our chances. 

not having any idea what a new roof on a place like this would cost, or what the water in the basement means, and my not having a full-time job in 2 months, we are probably going to have to let this jewel go. but i'll leave you with a few pictures and then you can comment and let me know how awesome this house would be to own.

Looking from the dining room, through the living room, into the parlor. the doorway with the filigree has pocket doors. the doors from the front entryway has french doors.

Dining room.

Hutch. It has all of its original keys.

Middle bedroom upstairs. Bay window. This was deemed Scott's music room.

Master bedroom. some jackhole stuck crappy laminate flooring down. taken fromthe sitting room that has a walk-in closet with a little circular window.

Sunroom upstairs. it's an addition, but it was done really well.

Hallway upstairs. it just keeps going. you can't really see it, but there's a built-in on the right wall before the third bedroom.

The kitchen. it's a sad kitchen. some jamoke put bright red laminate ikea cabinets in.they aren't even bolted down. but there is a back staircase that leads to the main stair. i dream of putting in afreestanding antique kitchen sink with cabinets, getting a modern-antique stove, and a hutch to put dishes in.