Month: August 2015

Top Five Reasons I Prefer Strong Central Government to States’ Rights (April 27, 2010)

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Which, let’s face it, is an out of date principal anyway, championed in the 18th century, a pre-technical era when the lack of responsive communications necessitated the need for local areas to make largely local decisions. It is now however the 21st century, and the most remote part of our land is but a click, call, drive or flight away. I know we have readers who disagree with me (Mr. A), and so be it. But lately the evidence in my favor has been piling up.

5. Oklahoma thinks it has the right to put add another layer of psychological torture to a woman’s right to choose.

4. The Southern states (collectively) decide that a joint is more dangerous to citizens than the ever growing number of obese adults walking around Wal-Mart.

3. Virginia tries to act like slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War.

2. California, land of hairdressers, fashion designers, actors, dancers and models, outlaws gay marriage.

1. Arizona makes its case as the most racist State in the Union. Suck it Kentucky!

364 Days (April 24, 2010)

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Jesika

I am not in a good place emotionally. Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the tragic passing of my great friend and comrade, Jesika Brooke Thompson. It was one year ago that I packed my bags to return home from a glorious trip to Israel, only to endure the most awful flight of my life, having been told via Skype right before heading to Ben Gurion airport that Jesika’s brief battle with ovarian cancer had ended.

I am a terrible person. Why? Because the continuous running question in my head this week has been to wonder whether I would have been maid of honor at Jesika’s never to be wedding to Kevin. I have considered this a number of times in the last twelve months, but in the last few days, the question has bordered on obssession, almost like this is the one piece of information that would provide me with the necessary closure and resolution. Why does the human mind work in such delirious ways?

I almost broke down while working out with my trainer on Thursday and Jesika’s name didn’t even come up. I was hit with the most acute loneliness, one that I couldn’t name or prepare for. But I knew that emptiness came from deep down, from going almost 365 days without talking to the woman who was a major part of my life for 16 years.

So I could wallow this weekend. There is much to feel sad about. It is hard not to project all the fabulous things that Jesika, with her educated mind and brilliant sense of humor, would have accomplished. It is difficult not to mourn the loss of being able to watch Kevin and Jesika complete their journey together. I am sorry to report that two months ago Kevin suffered a major stroke that he is still working to recover from, though through the miracle of medicne, it seems he is well on the path to healthy living. Lives have been changed in many unexpected ways by Jesika’s short struggle with cancer.

But I am trying, for Jesika’s sake, to make this weekend a celebration of her life and all the joy she brought to so many. I owe it to her because that’s what she would have wanted. Jesika was the epitome of anti-drama and would have had a complete distaste for all this wallowing on her behalf. I wish she would show up personally to tell me to snap out of it, but life is not an M. Night Shyamalan movie.

Instead I am trying to channel this depleting energy into a positive focus on next Saturday’s 13th Annual NOCC Illinois Chapter Walk for Ovarian Cancer. I have three miles to keep my head down and strut it out, funneling my anger toward the disease that took my friend (and my grandmother in 1991). The money our team has raised, and the pavement we will tread might one day lead to a cure. I have to settle for that positivity since I can’t bring Jesika back.

In our teens, Jesika and I were a couple of bad wannabe juvenile delinquents: smoking cigarettes, stealing hood ornaments, drinking stolen Bacardi on the tennis courts of Lincoln Park high school. Toward the end of her life, we settled for drinking a couple cosmos and talking trash. Such a wide range of memories. There will never be another like her.

The Case of the Ex (April 22, 2010)

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ex-boyfriends

Trying to get settled into my new life (apartment, job, a bundle of freelance projects that seems to grow everyday) has left me exhausted, not to mention woefully ignorant of anything important in the realm of news. I have stayed abreast of pop culture through furtive Blackberry readings of Perez Hilton on my daily commute (cut to image of Boop hanging her head in burning shame). Therefore, instead of one of my signature topical rants, you will keep getting anecdotes from my daily life until I can find time to re-enter the larger world.

My new office, located at Lake and Clinton is, quite literally, a stone’s throw away from one of my former employers, a company called Information Resources. I worked at the consumer spending tracking company from 2005-2007 while completing my Master’s in English Lit. at Northeastern. If you have ever seen the movie Office Space, or are familiar with the similiarly named TV show, The Office, you will be easily able to bring an image of IRI’s employees and work ethic to mind. It is, without the shadow of a doubt, the silliest place where I ever did time. I mean that in the best way. Full of happy hours, sloppy floor parties, hookups, rumor and innuendo, I am not sure much work ever got done. This may be part of the reason the company has gone through massive layoffs since I left, but I digress…

Boop was a single graduate student during her tenure at IRI, and I will own upfront that I was a great partaker in the aforementioned bundle of shenanigans (see paragraph above). My fellow employees and I got on, as Forrest Gump might say, “like peas and carrots.” I had nicknames such as “The Prom Queen,” “The Happy Hour Genie,” and “The Makeout Bandit.” It is all too true. During those freewheeling single days, I did use my place of employment as a de facto dating service. And not unsuccessfully either. Eddie and I met while he was a consultant at the company.

The problem is that some of my failed dalliances remain very much employed at IRI. I like to think I have morphed somewhat into a more respectable person since I left the halls of Information Resources: married woman, graduate, thriving career of sorts. Long gone are the days when I did three or more messy rounds of after work cocktails per week. My liver and gym routines will not allow it.

However, I cannot reasonably expect my discarded paramours to recognize my newfound maturity. So each day in my new role at Illinois Partners contains the same routine: I disembark from the Metra and run like hell for the safe confines of my building’s vestibule. At 5:00, I skedaddle back to the Ogilvie Station with sunglasses firmly in place, praying to avoid running into anyone who hates me.

This plan carried me through a full week free of the ghosts of boyfriends past. However, my luck ran out on Tuesday afternoon as I was lazily returning from lunch. The enemy always seems to attack when your guard is down.

He was getting out of a cab and oh no! It was the worst possibility of all: Kiran, the guy I left to get together with Eddie. The fact that Eddie and I have been married for 2.5 years, and Kiran’s own status as a happily married fella with a one year-old daughter, lulled me into the belief that perhaps we had grown, and could have a cordial conversation with bygones being where they belong.

Wrong. I could see recognition wash over Kiran’s face, followed closely by what can only be described as a look of withering scorn. I prayed very hard for the sidewalk to open up and swallow me, a la Baby Jessica down the well, but that shit never works when you need it to. So I braced myself for the stilted, unnatural conversation that was to follow.

It took all of about 30 seconds, but of course the discussion felt like hours. I left with the distinct impression that Kiran thinks he “won” because he has a child at this point and I don’t. Ah yes, baby making as some sort of contest: yet another reason I don’t go there. I didn’t feel the need to explain to him that there’s nothing at all wrong with my eggs or Eddie’s sperm. Let my personal choice make him feel avenged if it means an end to sidewalk nastiness.

It’s only week two at the new job and there’s at least five or six former suitors left for me to run into. Stay tuned…

O Mother Where Art Thou? (April 20, 2010)

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mother-and-daughter-t8961

I am preoccupied today with the topic of mothers and daughters, and the complicated dynamics that exist between them. It is a subject rendered murkier for me, because I have neither a mother in my life, nor have I ever been a parent. I have had a lot of “in betweens,” pseudo-Moms like my Aunt Diane (A.D. to us youngsters), or the parents of my close friends and loved ones. But that was always different, no matter how great it was. They have real children and are not obligated to you. It’s not their home you can move into if you lose your job.

Likewise, I view Rosebud, KK and most especially Jen as “my girls,” the closest thing I will ever have to daughters of my own – and I couldn’t love them any more than if they were. Jen and I had a most unconventional sisterly relationship growing up, the more so when you consider we’re only two years (and three days) apart. I’m certain I wasn’t always the greatest role model, but I was the only strong female figure my baby sister had in her world for a very long time. It was a protectorship I took, and still take, very seriously. But Ms. Of All Trades is a fine grown woman and doesn’t need to stand behind me anymore. KK and Rosebud think I’m pretty swell, thank you very much, but at the end of every day, they go home with Mom and Dad.

My lack of experience now throughly dissected, I wonder if I will ever to be able to grasp what it’s “like” to feel the ups and downs of the true, unguarded female relationship. What is the complex intimacy between a mother and her daughter? It’s such a trope of literature, film, drama and yet it’s wholly outside my understanding – always has been. I am used to being an island. If a co-worker regales me with tales of the “Momzilla” who is taking over her wedding plans, I nod my head knowingly and smirk as if I am in on the joke. But I’m really not. I don’t even know where my mother lives to have sent her an invitation to mine and Eddie’s nuptials.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not feeling sorry for myself. I don’t comprehend enough about the motherly attachment to even know what I missed. I just know that I am missing something. It sits there in my chest like a painless gaping hole. It’s an odd feeling to be wholly alien to a mostly universal experience.

Would anyone like to educate me?

It’s Awful, But I Love It (April 17, 2010)

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Illinois Partners

There are no office supplies to speak of at Illinois Partners. The coalition manager, my boss Judith, and I use leftover utensils from the basement of the United Way’s main Chicago headquarters. They are the same generous souls who donate us cube space, computer and phone with which to conduct our business, but we cannot have access to their network, since we’re not technically employees.

On my very first day, I sat through four straight hours of meetings, including one with the powerful Executive Committee, which includes philanthropic bigwigs like United Way, the National Shriver Center of Poverty Law and the Chicago Community Trust. When I wasn’t busy being awestruck by their political connections and knowledge of Illinois legislature mechanisms, I was furiously writing notes so I could later prepare and circulate the minutes.

During my very first week I was handed control of the website, FaceBook, Twitter and YouTube accounts. I have wanted to learn how to mobilize social media in a political setting for a long time, and now I have my chance, but it is daunting because I am so new and the stakes are so high.

On Thursday, Judith and I conducted a meeting while parked in her car for 30 minutes on Jefferson Street.

I worked overtime twice.

And yet everyday, tired as I am (the work of organizing 480 members of a human service coalition is left to two employees – Judith and I), I feel more whole, more engaged, and more satisfied in the workplace than I ever have. How many citizens of Illinois use or require one or more of the following social services: drug counseling, mental illness assistance, housing, child care, senior services, adoption help, child and teen programs, domestic violence shelter and more? I don’t think there’s anyone in the State who doesn’t love someone who desperately needs these programs, if they are not themselves a direct consumer.

But Illinois, right behind California and New York is spiraling toward bankruptcy, and I don’t think I have to tell you folks that the Land of Lincoln suffers from more than a bad economy. We have a full blown crsis of leadership on our hands. Michael Madigan is apparently the most powerul man in the State, I have come to learn this week. He doesn’t want to raise taxes and he’s in no mood to take from the unions, whose organizing power social services hasn’t had to this point. Program are going to be cut Draconian-style, and the human services sector are particularly positioned to to take it on the chin. It is both the blessing and the curse of social workers everywhere that they are always willing to do more with less. Government, especially in a fiscal crisis, and a political climate of complete inertia, counts on that.

So I am doing work that interests me, and building my writing skills in new ways, while doing work that directly matters. I can feel it, see it, hear it. This is a tangible that was always missing in my former corporate incarnations, and it kept me from staying interested once I had mastered my job.

No two days will be the same at Illinois Partners. Flush with idealism as I am, there will be moments of tremendous sorrow, as people who need nonprofit assistance will be less and likely to get it with each budget cycle. But I am willing to stay here in the trenches and keep fighting.