Author: Becky Sarwate

Pain is Punny! (October 2, 2013)

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“Style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema.”

-Albert Camus

“Excuse me for just a sec, I’ve got eczema around my nubbins.”

-Renée French, Micrographica

Apparently those of French descent, or simply bearing French names, know a thing or two about eczema, and are even able to add a dash of wit to discussions surrounding the ghastly condition. I admit that when I Googled the search term “quotes about eczema,” I rather expected to come up empty handed, and certainly didn’t anticipate a giggle. I have the sense of humor of a 12 year-old boy and the word “nubbins” renders me defenseless.

Trying to laugh through the pain is a coping mechanism I know well. It’s sort of a birth right passed down from my father’s side of the family tree, which contains more than a few branches molded by alcoholism, mental illness and suicide. There’s something bracing and refreshing about my clan’s ability to ad lib, pun and quip its way through challenges that would take down a less self-effacing group.

I sat down to write a confessional, self-pitying lamentation about the pompholyx eczema that has afflicted the palms of my hands for the better part of five months. The intense burn and itch of the half-year flare up has been a rather serious source of misery, affecting my work and much cherished exercise habits, in addition to presenting challenges to my self-esteem. If you click on the hyperlink above and look at some of the photos of sufferers, you’ll understand why. One of my close male pals recently characterized my raw appendages as “zombie hands,” which clearly alleviated my state of self-consciousness (not at all).

But frankly, I am tired of bitching about it. I’m seeing a specialist next week, and as she is the same magician who cured the alopecia that attacked my scalp in May 2012, there is reason for hope. Instead of devoting additional words and emotion toward a description of my acute symptoms, which frankly, I couldn’t forget for a moment if I tried, I’m going to go another way. Following the example of my new mentor Renée French, permit me to share additional instances of eczema humor I’ve come across:

“Eczema…about as cool as a honeymoon hand job.”

“Conserve Water. Shower with someone battling eczema.”

“I told my doctor that I have looked up my symptoms on the internet and I think I have eczema, impetigo and dermatitis. He said I’m making too many rash judgments.”

“Did you hear about the squid that got eczema? It was Kraken.”

“I can see huge flakes falling outside my window. It’s not snowing, just the guy upstairs with eczema scratching on his balcony.”

“Eczema jokes…They crack me up.”

Obviously some of these are blatantly corny and under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t waste my resources on a groan. But I was reminded of the soothing power of laughter last week as I conducted a training session at work in front of a group of people. My hands were encased in purple latex gloves, slathered underneath with topical steroids and a heavy lubricant designed to heal the worsening fissures on my palms. At one point, I became flustered because really, latex gloves are not ideal for typing in a high pressure situation.

One of my “students,” a normally quiet fellow I’ve seen around, brazenly heckled me. He was eager to get to the catered lunch setup in the conference room and riffed, “I’ve got my eyes on the pretzel roll sandwich. When you’re finished, can you take off your gloves and stand in front of the buffet line with your hands up, so I can get first dibs?”

My immediate instinct was to go all Scarlett O’Hara. “I declare! I have never been more offended. How dare you, sir?” However after I recovered from the initial shock, I burst out laughing. By poking at the elephant in the room, my pupil had nullified its power over me. I relaxed, finished my session and snatched up the coveted pretzel roll before I took my seat. All at once I felt control and ownership where minutes prior, I had been vulnerable and powerless.

The Irish playwright Samuel Beckett was dead on when he observed, “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it’s the most comical thing in the world.”

Running From Consumerism (September 18, 2013)

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I tend to view myself as an independent thinker. I’ve been a target of mass marketing, commercialism and political ideology like everyone else. But historically, I’ve congratulated myself on the ability to understand exactly what I’m hearing and maintain my own truths against the assault of outside influence. Deluded fool that I am. While out for a regularly scheduled run last Friday evening, I stopped dead in my tracks near the completion of mile five to face an uncomfortable truth: I am a member of the culture of consumerism’s well-tended flock of sheep.

It all started innocently enough. I jogged past a café and noticed an adorable red bicycle locked to a post. I own a cutie pie 2011 model red Schwinn Madison myself. However L’il Red is a bit beat up after high volume use, and an unfortunate wreck last Election Day that left me with a shattered tailbone and sacrum. I am healing slowly and nearly ready to terrorize the streets again. Thus I’ve been debating whether to take L’il Red to the bike hospital or upgrade to a newer model. So as I blew by the café and thought, “Oh! Sweet bike. I want!,” the reflection seemed appropriate.

Other thoughts of which I had no apparent control didn’t seem so logical:

Breezing past a convertible: “Wouldn’t I look cool driving that?” When I have my wits about me, I am THRILLED not to be a car owner. I live in the City of Chicago and wouldn’t go back to the parking hassles, gas prices and city sticker bullshit for anything.

“Those boots would look great with my long trench coat.” No they wouldn’t. I am a sensible shoe wearing lady – gym shoes, flip flops, hiking boots – and when I must dress it up, comfortable flats. Also, I never wear that trench coat. There’s this long, annoying slit in the back and when those famous Chicago winds kick up, the damned thing flies right open.

Trotting past a 7-11 window display: “Pepsi-flavored Cheetos are coming to the US? I have to try those.” I certainly do not. I loathe Pepsi products and the idea of uniting the flavor of the too syrupy cola with cheese flavored processed food should have immediately produced a stomach turn. Plus, um, I’M RUNNING AND THOUGHTS OF CHEETOS HAVE NO PLACE HERE!

And finally, the best for last: “Insidious Chapter 2 made $40 million at the box office last weekend. I wonder if it’s as scary as Saw.” No I don’t! You want to know why? Because I’ve never seen Saw. I avoid horror movies like so many Pepsi-flavored Cheetos because dammit, real life is scary enough. I can’t abide the sight of blood and violence, staged or otherwise. I watch most episodes of Grey’s Anatomy though my hands for Pete’s sake.

Oh the self-flagellation I have deservedly experienced since the conclusion of that eye opening jaunt around the neighborhood. Like the character of Silas, the albino Opus Dei monk featured in The Da Vinci Code, I feel the need for metaphorical bloodletting in order to cleanse myself of lemming disease. This might sound arrogant or naïve but I truly misunderstood the degree to which I am a product (pun intended) of the constant barrage of sales messaging. But now that I am aware of it, I vow to be more on my guard.

Got a bridge to sell me?

Separation of Party From State: Kim Davis, The First Amendment and the GOP

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Booking photo of Rowan County clerk Kim Davis provided by the Carter County Detention Center in Grayson

There may have been 11 people onstage at this past Wednesday night’s Republican “debate” at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, but one unseen individual might as well have jockeyed for camera position alongside Trump, Fiorina, Carson, et al. So frequently was Kentucky clerk of court Kim Davis’ name dropped, a suggested victim of religious persecution in violation of the First Amendment protections, she should have sat atop Reagan’s plane wearing an American flag t-shirt, one solitary tear slipping down her cheek. Would have meshed nicely with the rest of the evening’s complete lack of nuance and reality.

Like the GOP field’s total misappropriation of mid-August’s doctored Planned Parenthood videos to incite cynical, rational thought-clouding outrage within the party base, Davis has proven a useful gift that keeps on giving. For years, vocal Republicans have accused Democrats of waging a war on Christianity that threatens religious liberty. That this claim is a handy cover for the party’s fight against equality of every type, as dramatic as it is effective, only reinforces its utility. And Davis has become the misanthropic rallying cry’s It Girl.

It seems that among the many counterbalancing rights conservatives have chosen to disregard while uplifting religious freedom and the right to bear arms (freedom to marry, right to life), the pesky old separation of Church and State has also found its way to the scrap heap. But like so many acts of Republican hokum, wishing away the Founding Fathers deliberate effort to prevent religious wingnuts from dictating to the rest of us, does not make it so.

On September 14, the marvelous, erudite and openly gay actor George Takei wrote How Kim Davis Violated the First Amendment for The Daily Beast. He observed:

“So let us go back to high-school civics. When discussing the religious freedom portion of the First Amendment, there are not one but two clauses we must consider. The commonly understood and cited part, and the one Ms. Davis trumpets, is the Freedom to Worship guarantee. Under that clause, the government isn’t allowed to pass any law, or take any action, ‘prohibiting the free exercise’ of religion…

This argument falls apart, however, once you take into account the other, less commonly understood clause. The ‘Establishment Clause’ prohibits the government from aiding or assisting any religion, or religious viewpoint, over any others. This was a key point for the founders of our country, who were of diverse faiths and did not want a state religion, or even any state-endorsed religions.”

Ah yes, but there’s no way that conservatives will heed the good sense of a homosexual Hollywood type. What about another deeply religious writer, such as Mennonite Tara Culp-Ressler? On September 11th (yes), she published I’ve Refused Work Because Of My Religion. Here’s What Kim Davis Doesn’t Understand About Faith for Think Progress.

After a deeply personal description of the choices that have allowed her balance between beliefs and modern professional demands, she completely exposes the falsehood of Davis’ canonization by the right:

“Carving out space for individual workers’ religious objections cannot infringe on the rights of the people whom they’ve been tasked to serve. Nonetheless, in our post-Hobby Lobby society, the calculus has recently tipped much too far toward allowing religious individuals to wield their beliefs to diminish the rights of other people.”

I mean, what else is there? And yet multiple media outlets are reporting this weekend that Davis may still be squatting in her job whiledenying unaltered marriage licenses to Rowan County Kentucky couples. If there’s any tyranny afoot, it’s Davis’ insistence on collecting the paycheck of a government official without executing the duties of the position. Anyone working in the private sector will be happy to tell you. Misconduct is fireable for ANY reason, religious or otherwise. You like free markets, Republicans? By design, our Constitution precludes a public employee from religious dominance over his or her constituents. It’s why Davis has been to jail already. It’s high time she be excused from her position if she finds it so morally objectionable.

Change.org created a petition to recall Davis. However the Kentucky state legislature won’t convene until early 2016. The people may be stuck with the clerk’s services for several more months. That fact is a regrettable asset to a 2016 Republican primary crowd leveraging divisiveness, judgment and hate over actual working policy discussions.

I’m not sure it’s going to work as well once the Super Tuesday hangover ends and the general election candidate has to start the inevitable pivot. The convenient, temporal partition from the separation of Church and State joins the party’s repulsion of women and immigrants in making Republican candidates nationally unelectable.

The Comfort Zone (September 15, 2015)

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48 hours ago. I’m writing the first part of my story from the middle of a 26-glacier tour in Whittier, Alaska. Although afflicted with acute motion sickness, I’m pumped full of Dramamine, roaring through Prince William Sound on a catamaran. Moments ago, with cold 65-MPH winds whipping through my hair, I was hamming it up with victorious lunges on the upper deck for my friend Beth’s camera, channeling Saturday Night Live sketch character Mary Katherine Gallagher. Did I mention I’m incredibly fearful of the ocean? Superstar indeed. As I write while breathing the sea air, I feel fucking invincible. I am a conquerer – of myself and my demons. The toughest terrain of all.

The choppy waters of rural Alaska are decidedly not my comfort zone. By nature, I’m at home in the concrete jungle, born at Northwestern Hospital in downtown Chicago, graduating from high school at an inner city institution where metal detectors greeted me in the morning and members of the Chicago Police force jostled alongside students during passing periods. I was riding the El unaccompanied in junior high and the lakefront, Lincoln Park Zoo and other Chicago landmarks comprised the biggest, most dynamic backyard for which I could have asked. The ghosts of Carl Sandburg, Frederick Olmstead, Frank Lloyd and Richard Wright, as well as the modern influence of media powerhouse Oprah Winfrey, provided a trove of inspiration.

I should have been content staying energetically still in one, huge, diverse and creative mecca. That’s what they said. What right did I have to want more? Yet want more I did, having been born with what one might call a restless spirit. And I denied it for a long time. For too many years, I accepted the projection of others without question, permitting myself to be labeled as one for whom nothing would ever be “enough.” Pick your place and occupy it – literally and figuratively. What was good for my great-grand working class German and Italian parents should have been sufficient for me. They hadn’t crossed oceans and fled poverty to produce a fly by night hippie with an acute case of wanderlust. Consistency and routine meant stability and anything else was just ungrateful and irresponsible – an unacceptable aberration.

I wanted too much. Even I believed this. My desires and curiosity outstripped my socioeconomic station, my gender and despite being labeled a gifted student, even my intellect. As a little girl, it was ok to have dreams. Fantasies were healthy, but it was better if they stopped way short of disruptive – the princess waiting for rescue, the bride-to-be with a pillow case veil, the happy mother tenderly watching over her brood of baby dolls. I could devour the popular choose your own adventure novels of the 1980s, but I could not have it all. It wasn’t possible. It was greedy – maybe even dangerous.

Lord knows I tried to make “normalcy” enough. But my ambitions were stubborn and kept defying me. During my high school years, I was a member of the Chicago Children’s Choir and was fortunate enough to travel and perform with the group across such far flung locales as Poland, Russia and South Africa. I was told by so many adults that I was enjoying a once in a lifetime experience. But there’s nothing quite as subversive as books, travel and an romantic imagination. I ate watery borscht at a dormitory in Ekaterinburg, called my younger sister from a pay phone at the summit of Table Mountain and fell in love with a boy on a balcony as the lights of Warsaw twinkled behind us. With each soul quenching expedition, a little voice in my head asked, “Once in a lifetime, huh? Says who?”

My parents indulged my underage journeys, mostly because it cost them nothing financially. The scholarship kid. I’d sew those oats then settle down into regular, whatever that meant. After graduation, I headed off to Champaign, Illinois, a sea of suburban white people, corn and fraternity/sorority convention. As the pent up tidal wave of a dysfunctional home and the smallness of my new world washed over me, I descended into drinking, drugs and other dangerous behavior. The adventures of the past were behind me, all there ever would be. I can admit now to a passive effort at killing myself from depression and boredom. Ironically I’d become too complacent to participate in my own self-destruction. I deferred to substances to finish the job. But perversely, my tolerance for numbness only grew. I earned a degree in English Literature, minoring in Psychology but all I really learned was how to fake it. I read the works of Shakespeare, the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, but I wasn’t brave enough to follow their examples and live a multi-dimensional life of my own creation. It was just too scary and heretical.

Let’s jump 12 years, two failed marriages, 6 administrative and/or corporate operations positions and one suicide attempt ahead. To what most of us know as rock bottom. As I surrendered myself to personal therapy, Al-Anon and other resources for the clueless, fearful co-dependent, one truth was abundantly clear: this shit? Not working at all. With nothing else to lose, it was clear there was only one option left if I was going to keep living. Different. Denying my inner anachronist was no longer tenable. If I was going to make it in this world, it was more than past time to let my freak flag fly high. If I was going to be at all, I needed to try to have it all. And I understood that in both the short and long term, fighting for my right to live as I must was going to be uncomfortable as hell.

This is me today. From 8:30am – 5pm, Monday-Friday, I indulge my competitive, scorekeeping self, the WASP-raised Becky that requires financial solvency as a jumping off point for safely underwriting fantastic departures from the norm. I’m a Sales Communication Manager at TransUnion, a global information solutions company that serves businesses and consumers in 33 countries worldwide. I help my department reach lofty revenue targets by crawling inside the customer’s head to develop strategic marketing plans. It’s storytelling meets psychology. Hello practical degree application.

I’m also a parched academic, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, musty books and journals. In 2007, I earned an MA in English Literature from Northeastern Illinois University and retain strong campus ties as a student mentor and frequent collaborator with former professors. In 2012, I was honored with the NEIU English Department’s first-ever Alumni of the Year Award. My freelance work as a Chicago market theater critic for EDGE Media Network is an extension of my passion for literary scholarship, and also works as an affectionate nod to that dreaming, journaling little girl who longed to spend life in the library stacks.

But that’s still not enough. To be 100 percent authentically me is to acknowledge the stubborn, truth-seeking journalist, chasing stories while building a creative network for communicators of all professions. I’m the 49th President of the Illinois Woman’s Press Association, founded in 1885 and celebrating 130 years in 2015, as well as the Recording Secretary for the National Federation of Press Women. I’m a five-time national award-winning reporter, blogger, newsletter editor and critic who’s written for Contemptor, Politicus USA RootSpeak magazine, NewCity, Make It Better and StreetWise. I author a personal blog and publish my collected works at beckysarwate.com.

Finally, I’m an urban romantic and devoted family woman, still smitten with my younger sister Jenny after 35 years and quite possibly the most immature, silly aunt walking the streets. I realized along the way that parenthood is not for me, because as Toni Morrison memorably wrote for the title character of her novel Sula, I realized the thing I really need and want to make is myself – a beautiful product wholly unfinished.

I remain a born and proudly raised city slicker, residing in the Ravenswood neighborhood with my partner Bob and our menagerie of pets. But I step out of this world often as an adult who’s finally accepted stagnancy as my natural enemy. Maybe I should save for retirement, but I’ve made my peace with living for now because later is…later man. I can’t wait for the hypothetical. I want all I can have, right now. So instead of monitoring mutual fund performance, I’ve strapped on a sari and toured the temples of India, tentatively tiptoed to the Israeli/Lebanese border, cried overwhelmed tears of joy at Westminster Abbey and run the national finals of the Great Urban Race across the mountains of Vancouver.

No one ever told me I could try it all, be all the women I am at once. It’s work and I’m frequently exhausted. I am judged, second guessed and predicted to fail at every turn – by myself as well as the world at large. It’s risky, scary and expensive to indulge all myselves – in every costly sense. But I know now what the alternative is. Despair. I’d rather be tired and stimulated than rested and yearning. That’s existentially dishonest and I know it. The balancing act isn’t easy but dammit it’s necessary because my essence has no single dimensions. Corporate shark, writer, community organizer, lover. I am all of those things and I MUST scratch all of the itches. That requires a constant battle with a familiar enemy – the comfort zone.

I won’t let ANYTHING stop me from grabbing life by the balls and squeezing every last incongruous, exhilarating and frightening drop. Not even myself. I am the urban woman who writes stories while wearing stylish sunglasses and speeding through Arctic ice floes. If that’s uncomfortable for me or anyone else, fuck it. I can’t be otherwise.

When Pigskins Fly (September 10, 2013)

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Although I am stereotypically “girly” with regard my personal grooming and hygiene, I’ve always been, by society’s standards, one of the boys. An inherently competitive nature yielded a natural gravitation toward traditionally male-dominated activities: schoolyard rugby, tree climbing, baseball and skateboarding. I was the proud owner of a toy car and truck collection that was the subject of neighborhood envy, until tragically, I left them behind in a Wisconsin park after a family reunion. I was inconsolable for days.

My sister and I don’t owe our mentally challenged, neglectful parents much, but one thing I’ve always appreciated was their lack of adherence to traditional gender roles. My mother was our family’s primary breadwinner for most of my childhood, while my father played the role of stay at home dad. Beyond the unconventional modeling they provided (because it still was in the mid-1980s), the gender neutrality carried over into the way they raised us. Jenny and I played with Barbie dolls and Cabbage Patch Kids, and wore dresses on notable church holidays. But we also had Transformers and GI Joe figures. My father aggressively coached my younger sister’s t-ball and basketball teams, while I was encouraged to participate in any and all sports that caught my fancy: soccer, bowling, cross country, volleyball and more.

My younger sister Jenny spent half of her formative years in the emergency room, usually the result of injuries incurred during raucous horseplay. Ours were not helicopter parents. I sprained my arm once during a serious game of Monkey in the Middle gone terribly wrong. My folks took us to my father’s softball game, and then to a bar where I slept across two chairs while clutching my injured appendage, before we finally made our way to an ER.

Bored Saturday nights at home could typically find my sister and I having competitive kicking fights (a Me Decade precursor to MMA) or WWF wrestling with our father. During joyrides down steep alleyways found in our Portage Park, Chicago neighborhood, my dad encouraged us to sit in the passenger seat window, legs dangling outside the vehicle, so we could enjoy the rises and falls amusement park-style.

The point is, we were not coddled little girls and both Jenny and I grew up knowing very well how to take a hit. Our mother Gloria was a registered nurse so we were also usually up to speed on the latest in first aid treatments.

So I suppose it’s only natural that I grew into a woman who finds strenuous workouts exhilarating. It must be a feature of this competitive legacy that found me drunkenly destroying sawhorses situated along Clark Street in 2008, the last time the Chicago Cubs broke my heart. And I must conclude it is that ongoing gladiator spirit that has me leaping across my living room, alternating between pain and ecstasy, with each play of an NFL football game.

This facet of my personality has elicited mixed results from romantic partners. I’ve been accused of “trying to be a man” by more conservative mates, threatened by my temperament’s refusal to remain in the prescribed box. Conversely, my ex-husband Eddie dried my tears after failed Cubs playoff runs, and once pulled the car over on a side street in the Ravenswood neighborhood so I could jump out and angrily kick over another sawhorse (see: 2008 outburst above). My current love actually conducted my fantasy football league draft for me last year when I was in class and unable to participate. Apparently I put the fear of God in him (we’re both atheists, but you know what I mean) because his roommate reported that he practically had to breathe into a paper bag for fear of saddling me with mediocrity.

My favorite way of identifying that someone might be relating supposed facts in error is to query, “Wanna bet?!” It’s an unconscious reflex, and those who know and love me best report that it’s a surefire tell that I’m probably right. Therefore, no, they don’t “wanna bet.” For the less experienced, you’ve been warned. I have won Amtrak beer car funds and other semi-fabulous prizes in this manner.

I guess the point is I don’t do demure well. Life is not a spectator sport and nothing worth having is “won” by sitting on the sidelines or waiting patiently for your turn. Girls aren’t told this often enough in my humble opinion.

Though I can be equal parts loving and cuddly, I am aggressive. I chase. I get knocked down, I lose and I lick my wounds for a bit. Then I get up, dust off and go right back on the field. That’s the way I raised, but moreover it’s who I am, the same Becky who got sent to the principal’s office in first grade for smacking the much bigger Jimmy Liberto in the face after he scraped my arm with a protractor (note: the principal took one look at my angry, red little mug and after I entered my plea of self-defense, he dismissed me without prejudice). I like that I’m no shrinking violet. I love that as children, my sister’s enemies well knew that messing with her meant messing with me. I am no less a woman for being strong.

And I’ll consider changing when pigskins fly.