Chicago

Opposites Attract: A Story of Friendship (November 17, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

weird_animal_friendship_9

In the Fall of 1996, after a five week whirlwind summer tour of South Africa with the Chicago Children’s Choir, I found myself amidst the cornfields and animal dung that comprise the sights and smells of the University of Illinois campus at Urbana/Champaign. A concrete jungle girl through and through, and a self-described seasoned traveler, I was instantly dismayed by my new surroundings, so close to my hometown of Chicago (2.5 hours driving time) yet so far removed in the way of stimuli and heterogeneity.

The depression I felt upon unpacking my last box in the closet of a dorm room I had been assigned at the Florida Avenue Residence Hall (abbreviated, “FAR” which also ironically matched the domicile’s lengthy distance from campus) had little to do with missing my family and high school friends. It’s like I sensed that the public transportation taking, museum exploring, library wandering, sensory overloaded childhood I had enjoyed was about to come to a four-year screeching halt and I was helpless to do anything about it. A girl who refused to adhere to the U. of I. motto of “Go Greek or Go Home!” had little choice but to keep her head down, get a job and study hard. Graduating and moving back to Chicago swiftly became my raison d’etre.

Completely unable to tolerate living with my mother for longer than necessary, I arrived on campus a few days earlier than the bulk of my fellow incoming freshman. The benefit to this domestic twitchiness is that I had a head start on securing one of the better paying off campus jobs. My work experience comprised to that point of volunteerism and the occasional Sunday selling newspapers, I knew I would need the advantage of time to convince local managers to take a chance on me.

I walked my way along the Campustown thoroughfare of Green Street one determined morning, hitting up every fast food joint I passed. Food service seemed like a noble and poetic start to my career. Surely Jane Austen had worked in a kitchen at some point. She did after all, have seven brothers and sisters in an era without microwaves. After a lengthy and measured debate between McDonald’s and Wendy’s, I accepted a job at the latter for the King’s Ransom of $4.75 an hour.

During my second week of employment, as I entered the back door and assumed my usual place at the fry station, I noticed a new girl working the grill. The way she handled a spatula told me this wasn’t her first time flipping hammies. I was instantly impressed, but simultaneously intimated by her short but solid stature, black lipstick and natural white blonde hair. Unsure how to introduce myself, this dynamic person beat me to the punch. Within a few minutes I learned that Theresa was a fellow freshman and resident of the same dorm. She was from a town about 45 minutes south of Champaign called Mattoon and had the most beguiling hint of a southern twang. When Theresa went on to inform me that she was a Wiccan, I nodded my head in befuddled agreement, realizing that there was an awful lot this supposedly worldly urbanite had to learn.

Over the course of the next four years, a lot of things would be taught to me by the woman I grew to know as “T.” She in turn affectionately labeled me “Becca Jo,” a tongue in cheek nod to my transplant from the nation’s third largest city to a town of 60,000. I would say that T and I became the yin to each other’s yang, but she always seemed a few steps ahead of me. T taught me how to smoke pot in a dorm room without eliciting notice (her trick involved an elaborate setup of dryer sheets and empty Mountain Dew bottles). I went on my first drunken hayride with Theresa and her family (and right afterward, stole my first golf cart), flashed truckers on the Interstate, went skinny dipping, hosted an epic Halloween party that remains the stuff of Chambana legend, and learned the meaning of the local “country run” pastime. I never knew living in the middle of nowhere could be so much fun until Theresa showed me how to survive.

Shortly after graduation, Theresa married her college sweetheart, a wonderful man named Jake, and they settled in Shelbyville, slightly father south than Mattoon. I returned to Chicago to start my career in corporate communications, and the City proceeded to beat me up a little harder than my idyllic childhood memories would have predicated. Adult life turned out to be every bit as difficult a transition as the one from high school to college. In the Fall of 2000, we had the benefit of email, and as the years passed, FaceBook, but T and I have always stuck to our pattern on keeping tabs on each other with old fashioned U.S. Postal Service delivered letters, a la the Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey characters from Beaches. There is no comparable feeling in life to that of getting an unexpected missive, tearing open the envelope, unfolding the pages and greedily consuming the private thoughts of a loved one.

Though we are separated by more than four hours driving time, and T has an all-consuming life that includes two young sons, a demanding job and a large extended family, we still find opportunities, stolen moments to reunite and reminisce. This week was one such occasion.

Anyone who has read my recent work knows that this is a particularly trying time. I am unemployed, at a crossroads in several personal relationships, and ready to be honest with myself about the fact that I may never be ready for motherhood. While that sits ok with me, there are a lot of implications in my world: disappointed in-laws, well-meaning friends and family who believe I have made a hasty, childhood-scarred decision, and a husband who wants me to leave the door open to adoption when I am not sure that I can. I can never express what a welcome refreshment it is to be able to sit across the table from a woman who knows me better at times than I know myself. Someone who has seen me at me worst, has watched me fail over and over again, yet still assiduously leaves a sense of the pride and affection she carries with my name on it.

Well known, long-term friendships are the ultimate gift – the present of unconditional love.

See you soon T. It’s about time for me to make my way through the corn again.

Unemployment Week Three: The Numbers (November 4, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

unemployed

I have been out of full-time work for 21 days now, and as I can’t sit here and ruminate over the mid-term elections anymore (no Sharon Angle!), I thought I’d compile and share my vital statistics to date.

Unemployment Insurance Dollars Received: 0

At first, due to my employer’s failure to report third quarter payroll to the State in a timely fashion, my claim was outright denied, the government believing as it did that I hadn’t worked part June 30. Once that little snafu was rectified, and I filed my first certification for benefits, I was again rejected. The reason? I had the nerve to have been laid off mid-week.

Per the Claimant Notice of Possible Ineligibility (sexy verbiage!): “You earned X dollars which is greater than your weekly benefit amount of X.” Ok sure, for that one week don’t send me any funds. But how about the second? This is a bi-weekly filing. I’ll be damned if I am going to that dimly lit, sad IDES office again. I am due to certify again this coming Monday, which means I might finally get my meager slice of government cheddar on Friday, November 12 – a month after my last day of work. Needless to say, without the support of my still employed husband, I’d already be up shit’s creek without well, unemployment wages aren’t really worth the label of “paddle.”

Resumes/Applications Submitted: 21
Interviews: 0

I have been a writer in some form or another (corporate, nonprofit, freelance, etc.) for over 10 years. In this particularly jobless recovery, I have discovered that at 32, I sit in that awesome sweet spot where employers feel I am too experienced to pay 25k a year without benefits, yet too young to have had the experience of the major media/ad agency heydey. Which basically means that I have an advanced degree and a solid work history that leaves me unemployable. The really sought after writing positions in Chicago have their pick of candidates with a list of bylines longer and more impressive than mine. The entry level positions in publishing, media and the like want hungry kids with no lives. I have no problem dismissing my vanity and letting HR people I fall into the latter category despite my age. I have no children to raise after all. If only I could get them to talk to me.

Bottles of Red Wine Consumed: 480 (give or take)

See above statistics and ample time on my hands to lament my own failure.

Wrestling Matches: 1

A great friend of mine, a trained military assassin and Jiu Jitsu black belt, offered to to school me in the ways of self-defense. This topic came up innocently enough over a delicious lunch of Subway sandwiches ($5 Footlongs y’all!) and degenerated into a sweaty afternoon of me sitting astride an attack dummy and practicing a variety of chokes. Truthfully, I never knew there were so many.

I am always game for novelty and a chance to better defend myself in these mean Chicago streets, but I became perversely afraid of my dark side when my friend ordered me to choke him to a level of unconsciousness in order to “become familiar with it” and I did. I was following orders. Yikes! Did I just say that?

I left for home that day with a mildly bruised trachea, and a newfound terror that I possessed the ability to disable grown men with one sleeper hold. Maybe I could find work as a body guard?

Exercise Related Injuries: 2

See above windpipe lacerations.

I am using as much of my free time as I can reasonably afford without feeling like a dilettante to get in better physical shape. Right now everything hurts, and I guess I kind of like it that way. Symbolic, tangible pain is easier to cope with than the inner tumult. I have been hitting the Russian kettlebells hardcore with my trainer Rob. In addition to a long running battle with right foot deep tissue tendonitis, and the throat crushing, I am now nursing a right bicep that needs to pop itself in a pretty loud yet satisfying way every couple of days. Does the WWE hire female wrestlers in their 30s?

Petitions Signed to Get Candidates on the Chicago Mayoral Ballot: 2

I know I said I’d leave politics alone, but the midterms are so earlier this week. The Windy City has already moved on. As a frequent rider of Chicago’s public transit system, it is now perfectly usual to be accosted by volunteers ranging in age from 18 to 80, asking me if I am a registered voter of the City. For the first time in over two decades, urban citizens get to be a part of a major regime change as King Richard Daley of the Treasure Looting gracefully makes his overdue exit. The City is atwitter over who will fill those big, Bridgeport steel shitkickers.

In addition to the star power of potential candidates like former Illinois Senator Carol Mosley Braun, it seems like every regular Tom, Dick and Harry wants to throw his or her hat in the ring. And why not? Chicago has a pool of 10% unemployed individuals to select from, and none of them could make worse decisions than Daley. I have received several requests to sign the Rahm Emanuel petition. During the first of these, the outgoing Obama Chief of Staff was actually present. May I say, though I never noticed on television before, Mr. Emanuel is quite sexy? I direly wished I had brushed my hair before venturing to the gym that morning.

But I digress. I have also signed a petition for Mitch Newman, a local builder who wants to focus on Chicago’s failing schools and gang plagued streets. I have seen several very low-budget television ads for a variety of other potential race runners. Beautiful! Democracy at it’s finest. Suck it Tea Party!

Maybe I will run. I’ve got nothing else to do.

Good Luck Jon and Stephen! (October 30, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

Stewart_Colbert

It’s a big political day today, sort of like a Super Bowl for the Washington set.

In this corner, we have President Obama, returning to my hometown of Chicago for the first rally in the Windy City since the historic evening in November of 2008 when he became America’s only President of color. My husband and I were fortunate enough to be at Grant Park that night, and no matter how the administration rates now, nothing can ever take away from the emotional significance of that evening. I am often critical of the Commander-in-Chief, but he is a gifted and moving speaker. The rally, “Moving America Forward” is part of a series being held as the President attempts to boost the flagging morale of the Left, encouraging them to get to the polls on November 2nd. “Just Say No to the GOP” and all that. The stakes are high.

If it is possible to upstage the party of a sitting President (and it apparently is), Comedy Central hosts and comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are holding their own “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on the Washington Mall in the nation’s Capitol this afternoon. The event, which will begin any minute now, is a deadly serious tongue-in-cheek answer to conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s late August “Restore Honor” rally, which was attended by over 87,000. Many liberals, and quite a few centrists, objected to the timing of Beck’s call-to-arms, which also happened to be the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

Stewart’s soiree, per the organizational website, has but one mission: “We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard.”

Further: ” Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs) — not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.”

A rally for good old fashioned, hard working, common sense. How can I not get behind that? In some ways I am sorry it takes two men who get paid to crack jokes on a cable channel to organize a visible response to the caterwauling of the extreme Right, but whatever works. Break a leg guys!

How the Internet Saved Me From Myself (October 28, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

heart-internet-love

I am old enough to remember the days before the Internet and it’s offspring – blogs, streaming video, chat, porn – beguiled us so. My grade school and high school reports were researched at home via Encyclopedia Britannica, or else I had to go to the library for more sources. But when I was 14 years old, I spent a lot of time at the much cooler home of my best friend Jesika, part of a family of “early adopters.” They were among the first to sign up for Prodigy Internet service, and when I first “surfed” this archaic version of the Net, my mind was blown. You mean we could talk to boys from other states without attracting parental attention? Sign me up!

My Internet savvy and uses evolved somewhat as I entered college at the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. In the Fall of 1996, I created my very first email account at this always technologically progressive institution. I registered for classes online. I still didn’t have a computer of my own, instead making use of my roommate’s old fashioned word processor when facing a deadline and there were too many bodies in the computer lab. There was no Google yet so attempts to search for information meant using one of the earlier search engine prototypes, which yielded an undifferentiated, cluttered looking bag of mixed results.

I thought the Internet could be a timesaver in some cases, a novelty in others, but I couldn’t foresee then that the invention would mean anything more than that to me. I was, and remain, an analog book lover, a person who writes in a bound journal every other day and exchanges old fashioned letters written on stationary.

But then a little gnawing voice that I attempted to ignore for most of my life, but grew progressively louder as I entered my 30s, started yelling at me to stop denying that I had to write. I am nothing if not practical, and I knew that the profession of authorship, like music, dance and acting, bore a success rate of approximately 0.1% So I went about the business of trying to be a corporate success, continuing to fail miserably, wondering why I couldn’t get myself to play the game, until, exhausted by all the efforts to normalize, I had to face the truth. I am a writer – come what may.

And this is when I realized that the World Wide Web is the best thing that ever happened to me. At best, the Internet is a source of endless information located at the punch of a few keystrokes. At worst, it is a way for the socially awkward to distract themselves, tune out from the real world and avoid human interaction. I say this is a terrible phenomenon because in the wrong hands, Internet addiction can deprive one of a meaningful life.

But for me this covert method of demonstrating perceived talent without actually having to look anyone in the eye has been a godsend. I am a bit of a conundrum. I am quite outgoing, gregarious and sometimes even charming in a room full of people with whom I already feel a safe connection. At other moments, in a space full of strangers, I give off the impression of having Asperger’s Syndrome: stiff, silent, nervous, drinking too much to try to overcome my discomfort, certainly not the confident smart aleck I appear to be with my inner circle.

This tendency to become a hot mess in new social situations goes to another level if I am on the spot professionally: giving a presentation, accepting an award or even talking about a subject anywhere close to my heart. I look down, get teary eyed, and my hands start to shake. Can you just imagine me trying to pitch a book? It all of course comes down to insecurity. Without the Internet, and its cousin, email, I may never have had the balls to put myself out there at all.

Because what I can’t bring myself to do in person, for fear of rejection, failure or just plain old looking stupid, I can do with rehearsed, unemotional confidence over the computer. The first time I reached out to the Editor-in-Chief of a local Chicago paper, the first publication to take a chance on me, my palms were sweaty. I felt faint and almost certain my offer to write a story would be shot down. But Suzanne didn’t see any of this. What hit her inbox was the thoughtfully worded, calm and professional request to throw me a feature. I nearly fainted with shock and fear when I received an affirmative reply a few days later, but again, Suzanne was not privy to that response. My practiced, “Thank you, I look forward to meeting your deadline” allowed no hint of neuroticism.

With very few exceptions, all of my writing has been for the web, that first print feature notwithstanding. On the page of this blog, I put myself out there, dare to inscribe things I often can’t say to myself. It has made me a better writer. The ability to hide behind my terminal has paradoxically done more for the real “me” than anything else. Some of the topics I have addressed in my work have opened up much needed, and often delayed conversations in my personal life. What can I say? I am better behind a keyboard than in a room – everytime.

I know I need to work on the interpersonal part of my game. I can’t simply flee when asked to have an adult conversation with a stranger who may or may not have some decision making power over my career. But for today, I am grateful for the opportunity to share my insecurities with a larger potential audience than I might otherwise have allowed myself to experience. In person, I trip over my own self-deprecation before giving others the chance to point out my flaws. Online, clad in sweats from the comfort of my home office, I am a confident, more risk taking Becky.

Immigration Frustration (October 22, 2010)

Becky SarwateLeave a comment

immigration

Three years of marriage, countless forms and $4,500 in legal fees later, my husband Eddie and I are still in the process of trying to secure his final, “unrestricted” green card. My husband immigrated from India in 2002, a 22 year-old man with an undergraduate degree in Information Systems earned on a satellite campus of the University of Hertfordshire, England at New Delhi.

When he deplaned at JFK airport in New York, with nothing more than two suitcases and a couple hundred bucks in his pocket, Eddie had already done the hard work of completing the TOEFL, the GRE and countless other acronym tests to gain acceptance to the New Jersey Institute of Technology. There he completed his Master’s in Information Systems while working two jobs: one as a weekend bus boy at a local Indian restaurant, and a second as a day laborer in a mattress warehouse. He came to this country honestly and legally, devoting every bit of his energy to survival and study. After his matriculation, he took a job from what he and his counterparts label a technology “body shop,” a company that pays immigrant workers low wages for long hours in exchange for helping them file a H1-B, a worker’s visa.

New York Times financial columnist Paul Krugman, and a number of other economic experts now argue that Eddie, and so many skilled immigrant workers like him, should have received a permanent green card as a graduation gift upon exiting the doors of NJIT. After all, what is the point of U.S. educational institutions training people like my husband, only to send them away afterward? That is no way to make America a stronger global competitor. In a period of mass unemployment, we find ourselves in the curious position of not having enough skilled technical workers. Wouldn’t it make sense to try to hold onto the ones already living and working within our borders?

But you know what else doesn’t make sense? Making that same person and their U.S. citizen spouse jump through years of legal hoops and costs to prove that their love match is in fact, real. Because you see, although his company at the time was more than willing, it was I, who had apparently watched the Gerard Depardieu/Andie McDowell cinema classicGreen Card a few times too many, that convinced him that filing for permanent legal residence via our marriage would be more expedient.

We sought the advice of a reputable immigration attorney before we walked down the aisle (or around the fire seven times, but you know what I mean). So ok, there was a lot to compile: marriage license, our first joint tax return, bills, transcripts of letters written in our dating life, photos, mementos – a bevy of personal treasure that demonstrated our ties together. But again, I had seen the movie and was ready for the paperwork, the invasive hearing, the whole shebang. It always felt ironic that I was, in effect, “sponsoring” someone with more accomplishments and three times more earning power than I would ever know, but procedures must be followed. We’d be laughing about all of it in six months right?

Wrong. Despite having impeccable documentation, and notwithstanding Eddie’s easy pass of his immigration physical and biometrics appointment (fingerprinting and retina scan), it took a full year to be granted our interview. Alright, we told ourselves, a number of marriages today begin and end within a year’s time. It was just another way to weed out fraud. Good thinking America! Across the globe, the prospect of a U.S. green card is still an attractive enticement, and as such, malfeasance abounds. We knew our marriage was a love match, so why fret?

Our hearing was held in a downtown Chicago office in January of 2009. Shortly thereafter, we were informed by letter that Eddie had been approved….but with “restrictions,” a new initiative that neither of us had heard of before. At the time we were told by our lawyer that this was “routine, no big deal.” In two years we would fill out a simple form verifying that our marriage hadn’t disintegrated, and the restrictions would be removed.

So last month, the time came to complete the petition to have the restrictions removed. And guess what? This process is anything but regular. Instead it feels like time wasting deja vu. Eddie was running around like a chicken with his head cut off for a full week gathering (you guessed it) pay stubs, utilities, tax returns, more photos, etc. The “routine” form was in fact a thick stack of paperwork that cost us another $1200 to file (on top of the $3300 we spent in 2007).

What’s more, though Immigration already has Eddie’s medical records, fingerprints and retina scan, he has been told that another set will be required. Any day now, he will receive a notice for an unchangeable appointment to report once more for guinea pig duty. In big, bold print, this notification will declare that failure to make oneself available for the call could result in a “change” to immigration status. Not at all ominous, right?

It is very fortunate for my husband and I that we have the necessary resources to get through this drawn out process, but what about the newly married couples that don’t? To Eddie’s credit, it is he who is keeping his cool and going through each step like a champ. I on the other hand, am starting to get angry. I am a U.S. citizen and have the entitlement to marry anyone non-criminal I choose. It’s written right there in the Constitution within my right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Why doesn’t the government make it any easier and more cost effective, for me to be with the person I wed?

I found myself wondering yesterday, and not for the first time, why anyone bothers to come to this country anymore. Is it worth it? What do these people get in return for running the hamster wheel, not to mention the lost years and thousands of dollars? Repeated invasion of privacy and insinuations that you are your spouse are out to scam the government in exchange for what? A 10% unemployment rate and no voting privileges? I’m over the arrogance.