Change of State

I was discouraged looking at studios. They all seemed so small and ratty. Dark cocoons where single people live, Loyola students with smelly mold in their kitchens, in their socks, young Goths here to break free of mom and dad. Where does a nice normal part-time lush have to look to find something decent, I wondered.

Finally, I found it. In a high-rise with an incredible view of the lake, tons of storage, a block from Fritzie's studio, perfect for my writing afternoons. I'll apply tomorrow and think about the move itself later. One thing at a time, as my friend the genealogist reminded me. Today it's 70 degrees and sunny. Who cares about moving?

I walked down to the liquor store with my host's husband Juanito. I wanted Mexican beer—a bad but cheap habit I picked up in Cancun. A beer fills an empty afternoon with warmth and fellow-feeling, and I needed both. If it's going to be beer, it has to be Mexican—I don't enjoy anything else and the taste takes me back to Mexico, which I'm nostalgic for, fed up though I was with it when I left. The heat, the noise, the dirt. Chicago reminds me of it in a way. I'm thankful I had that recent experience to prepare me for living here. The people on the street making their noises at you, the whistles and catcalls, the sudden momentary joy of seeing into someone's unguarded eyes. I can walk around here with confidence knowing more often than not I'll speak a common language with the person I ask directions of. And what is there really to fear, with friends to help me?

I don't think I'll have any trouble finding men, either. In fact quite the opposite. They're everywhere, in every shape, size, and color. Fantastic. A moveable feast indeed. A feast for the eyes after years of deathly, daily famine. A feast for the senses and for the imagination.


Young women stuck in small towns, withering away like Mme Bovary, starved and vulnerable to the ill-intentioned ministrations of any man remotely alive, I have a mandate for you: Run. Bolt like a racehorse and get yourself to a place where there's something to choose from, not settle for. You can always go back home, free or caught. Raise your standards, don't lower them.


Gods, I'm sad for all the years I lost. I can only hope they made me better somehow, more hungry, more sure, more separate and strong. More myself, although I always felt I was slipping horribly into someone else's world, grasping at straws and sliding downward into premature old age, into a life where inspiration was considered satanic if it were not direct from Jesus, into a mental state of impoverishment, into permanent Thorazine stagnation. I guess now I'm going through withdrawal. Rip that life off me like a Band-Aid, quickly so the pain is as quickly a memory. There are new things to see and do, new selves to become, new adventures just around every corner.



Finally I am ready to have them.