My Views

My gods, I love the lake. I love it! I can’t believe what the simple pleasure of having a view of unending blue water, green grass, gorgeous trees does to my soul. Even better, I get to run and walk along the water’s edge every day. Before I moved here, I ran by the lake or the ocean only a few times a year, and it was never enough. Now, even if I’m feeling sluggish, I keep looking out at the water, the sailboats, the whitecaps, the sunshine, the people and dogs walking around below, and sooner or later I have to get my running shoes on and go.

I always used to tell my ex that we could be poor anywhere and we may as well be poor somewhere with a view as opposed to being poor in Indiana. And here I am. Poor, happy, grinning like a fool alone in my apartment, taking long glances out over the lake, which at this moment is a deep opaque blue. A sailboat is drifting by far, far out, and I am deciding that on my list of thirty things to do in my thirties, learning to sail is moving closer to the top.

Yesterday and today the shore has been windy. Running into the gusts makes one breathless; delicious. My hands tingle, fingers frozen stiff, when I come indoors out of the wind. Downtown it could be eighty degrees, but here at the shore it’s sixty, and the wind slices through you if you’re not dressed for it. Parasailors are out today, the robust young thrill-seeking men in their wet suits (still, how do they stand Lake Michigan’s cold?). From afar their arched sails high above the water look like strange, colorful birds circling some underwater prey.

The waves were churning yesterday as I walked a stretch of sea wall (lake wall, I guess). The water crashed against the wall; the spray rose up, in that slow motion gravity-defying way it has, and misted me. I felt like I was in Freeport again, being sprayed by water sloshing around in the filming area—what we jokingly called the Washing Machine because the waves were always so violent, jostling at each other in confusion as they were trapped inside the retaining wall.

El-Zizabeth sent me a care package. I loved it so much I cried. There was all kinds of food, snacks, a postcard, and my favorite, little bamboo drink umbrellas. It was my first-ever care package and an absolute delight. Not to mention coming just in the nick of time, since all I had to eat in my apartment were some eggs already a month past their expiration date.

I’ve got a few more Bobslist fellas on the hook. Tomorrow I go to the Lincoln Park Zoo with a guy who is almost seven feet tall and by far the tallest guy I’ve ever met, let alone gone on a date with. We’ll call him the Gentle Giant, as he seems a bit of a doofus (in a nice way). Definitely a potential pal but mostly I’m just curious what a seven-footer does on a date. (How does he fit in the car? Does he feel a special affinity for the giraffes at the zoo? What does a seven foot tall man eat for dinner?)

Then there’s the Ringer, a slightly older man who, if he is even one-tenth as fit, smart, and interesting as I find him in his photos and emails, is my top choice for Actual Summer Guy. He’s delightfully masculine without being a pig (delicate balance, there), has man-hands galore (when Fritzie saw his photo he gasped and said, “Now that is a MAN”), and is, like yours truly, a fan of the golden trinity: Scotch, whisky, and bourbon.

Next on the possible lineup would be the Frustrated Artist, a guy whose dog wrote his Bobslist ad because it wanted to get out to the park more often. What can I say—the dog is cute. While the Artist himself seems a smidge directionless and whiny, I plan to meet the dog who was intelligent enough to include a picture of itself in the Bobslist ad. (They do say terriers are freakishly brainy.)