I Plead the Fifth

My position as an Artistic Administration Intern at Heartbeat Theatre requires me to float between all of the administration departments. Since starting in January it has been apparent that my primary interests are in Development and I now basically go between Front of House duties and helping the Director of Development, Tad*, plan for our annual benefit. Thus far, the majority of this planning involves researching and soliciting possible donors for live auction prizes and raffle items. Most of the time I look up a place in Chicago, fill-out a letter of appeal, give it to Tad to sign, and then I post it. Other times, however, Tad and I go door to door with our letters, hoping an in-person interaction will prove more fruitful.

Yesterday, Tad and I drove to my neck of the woods to visit some of the popular shops and spas in downtown Evanston. Whenever we drive somewhere we take the Heartbeat shuttle and Tad drives. I have to admit that Tad is one of a handful of people who makes me slightly nervous when they drive. He doesn't pay much attention to other drivers and every now and then I so doubt his ability to brake that I find myself doing the parental "invisible brake" move.

Our drive started out as it always does: Tad backed out of the Heartbeat driveway and I braced myself for the inevitable impact with the cement wall across the narrow cobble-stoned road. Thankfully I was proven wrong once again and we headed into the city to pick up a candle-filled gift bag. We got the gift and then made our way to Lake Shore Drive. On the way we encountered an intersection with downed lights. The woman in front of us was not a terribly assertive driver and let about five cars go before she finally took her turn. When she did, Tad plowed on behind her much to the surprise of two other cars: one which was attempting to turn in front of us and another which got about a foot away from my passenger side door.

"Why are they honking?" Tad asked. "That lady went and no one seemed to mind."

I should mention that, like me, Tad is a fellow military brat. However, unlike my military brat life, Tad's overseas experience was spent in the Middle East as the son of a diplomat. Tad's family had their own driver and Tad only came to the States to attend a college in Chicago. Basically, Tad has had little experience driving his own car. I explained to Tad how powerless intersections became four-way stops. I am not quite confident that the next time he'll actually follow that rule, but maybe he'll at least not question the dirty looks from the other drivers.

We arrived in Evanston and Tad pulled up in front of the first business we were to solicit. Neither of us had enough change for more than thirty minutes at a meter and we wanted to save that for the row of businesses on the main drag. I hopped out of the car and found that the place was closed. I got back into the car and we headed a few blocks west. I pointed to the awning of the next store that was on our list. There were two cars parallel parked out front with enough space between them for the Heartbeat shuttle. "I'll wait in here," Tad said as he started to pull between the two cars. I watched anxiously as the side of the shuttle seemed to near the front of the parked white Lexus. We can make it, we can make it, I thought.

SCRAAAAPPPPPP - BOOM!

We didn't make it. Tad turned to me suddenly. "Did we just hit that car?!" I thought the sound and vibration through the shuttle had made the answer very obvious, but I craned my neck anyways to inspect the damage. All I saw was the curb and Tad turned the shuttle back towards the road. "I'm not sure," I said, "but it sounds like we did."

"Oh my god. Did we -- oh my god." Tad's eyes were wide and he looked from the wheel to the rear-view mirror.

"Maybe it was just the headlight," I offered. "Cars can make a lot of noise even when there's no real damage."

"Oh my god." Tad was looking over his left shoulder.

"I had a car fly past me once and they were so close that the sound sounded like he had just scraped all the paint off my car."

Tad pulled back into traffic. "We just hit that car...can you see a dent?" I wasn't sure if he meant the shuttle or the Lexus. We were now a block and a half away from the Lexus so I tried to look at the side of the shuttle.

"I can't tell," I said, watching the Lexus disappear completely from view. "Are we...we're not going to stop?"

"I can't believe I just hit that car. It's probably not that bad, right?"

"Probably not. Are we really not stopping?"

"Oh god. I think I saw a silver streak left on the car." We paused at a red light. "Are the rest of the shops north?" Tad asked.

"...Yes...we're really not stopping?" I felt dumbfounded. The side of the shuttle read "Heartbeat Theatre Shuttle" from wheel to wheel. The owner of the Lexus wouldn't have even needed to run out and read our license plate. The shuttle literally spelled out the name of the streak-leaving culprit.

I couldn't tell if Tad had stopped answering me because he wanted to ignore the situation or because he was that petrified. A typically self-assured man, I had never seen him so at a loss for words and indecisive.

He turned north on a street a few blocks away from my apartment. "Do you think we damaged that car?" he asked.

"Pull over here and I'll check the shuttle," I said. "If we left paint on their car then it has to be missing from ours."

Tad pulled over. I checked the rear-view mirror, only slightly paranoid that the owner of the Lexus might have seen the incident and followed us on a warpath. I mean, that's what I would have done if I had seen someone hit my car. Luckily, there was no paint missing from the side of the shuttle. Not even a scratch! There was, however, a small dent in the side door. A ten year old shuttle, Tad and I were not completely certain as to whether that dent had already been there or not.

We spent the next hour handing out appeal letters and walking from shop to shop in downtown Evanston. By 4pm we had only four letters, one of which was addresses to the business where the white Lexus had been parked. Tad and I stared at the letter for a moment. "Do you think we should go back?" Tad asked. I knew he meant only to deliver the letter, not to apologize to the Lexus owner. I fully believed that he would have dropped me off around the corner from the business and waited for me, safe from view. "Let's just post it," I said.

I realize that this story makes Tad sound like a horrible person who does not take responsibility for his actions. This is not true. As I said earlier, Tad's reaction to the hit-and-run took me completely by surprised. In the past three months I have known him as a thoughtful, upstanding, and confident person, who is not afraid to admit when he is wrong. It was not until after Tad had dropped me off at my apartment that the true cause of Tad's panic hit me: there is a very high probability that he does not possess a U.S. drivers license. Having spent his entire high school career in the Middle East being driven around by an armed guard, I am unsure as to whether he has any type of drivers license at all. Like me, Tad is in his early twenties and needs an ID to order a drink, but age can be demonstrated by a passport, too. I had ordered drinks with Tad once while hosting a Bingo benefit for Heartbeat. I could not recollect what he had shown as his ID. Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think either of us were even carded that night.

As the Heartbeat shuttle drove down my street I thought about how often I needed to show my drivers license for one reason or another, but how each of those instances could have been satisfied with a passport. Maybe Tad had a military ID. That would show his age and have the hologram to prove it wasn't a fake. The shuttle yielded briefly at a stop sign before speeding through the intersection. I watched until it was more than a block away. I wanted to make sure he didn't hit my car.

Locked

I spent the beginning of last week babysitting a house with two large German Shepherds. After working at Heartbeat Theatre on Monday I drove straight to the house, let the dogs out, and feed them dinner. I was trying to catch a 5:10pm train downtown for an author event so I made a quick supper for myself, grabbed my car keys, and went outside to get my overnight bag from the car. A small cream coloured curly haired dog greeted me in the front yard and stretched his short legs all the way up to my thigh. A woman came by and apologized for the dog's enthusiasm. I smiled and said it was 'no problem' and headed back inside. I turned the door knob. My hand was met with unexpected resistance.

My heart stopped. I took a deep breath and told myself not to panic. When I had first arrived at the house the door knob had taken some force to turn so this wasn't unusual. I tried again. Nothing. My anxiety began to rise ever so slightly as I pulled and shook the door with all of my might. Still nothing. The door was a steel fortress protecting the house, the dogs, the keys, and my cellphone.

I walked around the front of the house trying to open every window. Nothing budged. The woman with the curly dog walked by once again. "Are you one of their neighbours?" I asked, gesturing to the fortified house. "Yes," the woman responded. "You wouldn't by any chance have a key to their house, would you?" I asked and added, "I'm watching their pets and...I seem to have locked myself out..."

She checked her watch. "Oh! They normally get home around five. That's in fifteen minutes."

"Yeah...they're in Hawaii for the next two weeks. They left this morning."

The woman's face fell along with my hope. I suddenly remembered the back of the house. I had bolted the back door before going outside to get my bag, but it had become unusually warm in Chicago. Maybe the owners had left a window open for a breeze! I walked along the side of the house and was met with a five foot tall solid wood fence. Naturally, the lock was located on the inside of the fence. I leaned over as best as I could, but was lacking in about three inches of length. I tried to extend my reach with my car keys, but was only able to brush the top of the lock.

(I should take a quick aside and explain that the pet/house-sitting I do in Chicagoland is all organized by a company called PetLand*. Pet owners contact PetLand whenever they need dog walkers or house-sitters. PetLand, who has done background checks on all of its employees, then calls those of us willing to do house-sits and sees who is available. Not a bad way to make money, but it does make the experience of staying in someone's house and taking care of their pets oddly impersonal. I meet the owners once before they leave and then that's it.)

Ten minutes later I was sitting in the nice neighbour's kitchen with her dog in my lap. She offered me her iPhone and I looked up the number to PetLand. I was trying to track down the boss, Janet*, who would be the only person with a spare key to the house or knowledge of where a spare key may be. Janet was, of course, gone for the day and the store clerk told me that she was not allowed to release her cellphone number. She said that she would call Janet and I gave her Nice Lady's home phone number and hung-up. Nice Lady, a professor at DePaul, went upstairs to grade papers. She told me to make myself at home and that she did not have to be anywhere until her yoga class, which was an hour and half away.

The phone rang. "Georgia, it's for you!" Nice Lady called from atop the stairs. "Georgia," Janet said before I had barely uttered 'hello', "what happened?"

"I've locked myself out of the German Shepherds' house. I don't even know how it happened! I was going outside to get my stuff, I didn't even shut the door and it somehow shut and locked behind me."

"And you don't have the key."

"It's in the house along with my cellphone."

"Where are you now?"

"Some nice neighbor's house. They have a dog walker, though. I assume it's a PetLand dog walker because I saw a PetLand packet on their table. Can you contact whoever that is and get their key?"

"I'm going to have to go back to office because I'm the only one with a key to the back room."

"Okay."

"It's going to take me an hour to get there."

...Of course...

While Janet made her hour long trek back to PetLand, I sat in Nice Lady's kitchen, wondering how this situation could possibly be anymore embarrassing. An hour later Janet called.

"It's not good," she said, when I asked if she found a key. "They don't use our dog walker and they're new clients so we don't have a key." I saw dollar signs float past my eyes as I thought of what a locksmith was going to cost. Would they have to change the locks or could they just get me in the house? "However, I do have the number to their dog walker, Adam*, and the number to a neighbor who might have a key." I scrambled for a pen and began to write the numbers on my arm before Nice Lady appeared with a scrap of paper. I thanked Janet and told her I would keep her updated.

For some reason, Janet had the dog walker's name and cellphone number, but only the neighbor-with-the-key's number. As luck would have it, Nice Lady was the head of the neighborhood watch! She pulled out her list of names and numbers and found that the house was right next door! Nice Lady suggested we go over in person to get the key. As we walked out of her house I shut her front door behind me. Nice Lady gasped and spun around.

"No," I said.

"That door is locked!"

I fell against the wall and slid down the the ground. "What is happening?!" Nice Lady began to laugh hysterically. "I swear," I said, "I've never even locked myself out of my own house! This never happens to me!"

"We'll deal with that later. Let's go get that key."

We went next door, my head hung low, and were greeted by the neighbor's teenage daughter who seemed to be experimenting with mascara for the first time.

"Ya?" she said, obviously annoyed that we had interrupted her trial and error time.

"Is your mother home?" Nice Lady asked.

"She's out for a wa-wlk." It was like listening to an SNL parody of a Kardashian sister.

"This young lady," Nice Lady gestured at me, "is babysitting Barbara and Lucy's* dogs and has gotten herself locked out. Apparently your mother has the key. Do you know where that might be?"

"Nooooo."

"Do you know when she'll be back?" I asked.

"She went for a wa-wlk."

"We've established that," I wanted to respond. Luckily, Nice Lady interjected with, "Well have your mother call us as soon as she gets in, okay?"

"Okayyyy."

Walking back to her house, Nice Lady led me to her backyard. "I hope you're not an axe-murderer," she said, "because now you're going to know where our spare key is."

"Don't worry," I said, clearly not listening to the words coming out of my mouth, "I've had two FBI background checks." Nice Lady gave me an odd look, but continued walking in the direction of her secret rock. She lifted it. No key. "Oh that's right," she said, "when my husband's out of town he takes the spare key."

"How long is your husband out of town for?"

"A week. He left for Springfield this morning."

"Ah."

"My children should have a key, though."

"Oh good!"

"They live in downtown...and their numbers are in my cellphone..."

"...Which is in the house..."

"Yes."

We walked to the front of the house. As we passed her garage door Nice Lady stopped suddenly. She squinted at the rear entrance, which consisted of a plexiglass door and a wooden door. The reflection of the wooden door in the plexiglass was slightly askew. Nice Lady walked over and found the door mercifully left ajar. Huzzah! We made it into the house with just enough time to answer a call from Janet.

"What's happening?" she asked after Nice Lady handed me the phone. I explained waiting for the neighbor to get back from her walk. "Those dogs are probably ruining the house," Janet commented.

"Well I had just fed them and let them outside before I went to grab my stuff. I was actually about to crate them so they should be fine."

"Why were you going to crate them?"

I suddenly realized my mistake. With PetLand, house sitters are supposed to start their watch at 3pm and not leave the house until morning. Have I ever actually adhered to this rule? Of course not, but I wasn't about to let Janet know that.

"Oh. I was going to go hear an author give a talk downtown."

"You know that when you start your sit at three you are expected to stay in the house the rest of the night. Is this going to be a problem?" Her I'm-the-boss voice was beginning to appear.

"Oh no! Travis [the assistant manager] said that we could leave to go get dinner if we needed to."

"Well yes, you can do that, but that's something that should only take an hour."

"The author event was in Uptown and I was going to drive so it was only going to be an hour. If even that really because the talk was only a half hour long." In case it's not obvious, I was making up every word. The author event was in downtown and I was planning on taking the train. The total excursion probably would have been close to three hours. Luckily, though, Janet trusted my words. She told me to call her as soon as something happened and hung up.

Another thirty minutes went by and Nice Lady's yoga class was looming dangerously close. I knew I could not expect her to miss her class to let me continue to hangout in her house and read her New York Times. She came downstairs in her yoga clothes. "Let's give the neighbors another ring," she suggested. Just as I had suspected, Mini Kardashian had never given her mother our message. Nice Lady explained the situation and said that we would be over momentarily. I barely placed a foot on the neighbor's doorstep before I took the key from her hands and bolted to the German Shepherds' house. Two and a half hours had passed since I had been inside the house. The spare key in my hand seemed to good to be true and yet...it worked! I threw the door open and was greeted ecstatically by the bear-sized dogs. I grabbed my cellphone, THE KEYS, and called Janet to relay the good news as I walked back over to the neighbor's house. I thanked both the neighbor and (especially) Nice Lady for helping me out and wished them both a good night.

As I walked back to the German Shepherds' house I made mental note to get Nice Lady a gift card to somewhere. I walked inside the house, shut the door, and stopped: I had never asked her name...

A Tale of Twigs, Bags, and Animals: More Adventures from the CTA

Spring has sprung in the Windy City, dear readers! I have been able to walk outside in nothing but a dress and cardigan for the past week! It has been glorious. It’s been a while since I last wrote something on here. I suppose that means my life has become boring? I work at the Heartbeat Theatre, work at the Gap, pet-sit almost every other weekend and try to see what few friends I have in the city at least once a week. Thankfully, I have the trusty Notes feature on my iPhone, which allows me to quickly jot down anything peculiar that I come across throughout the day. As one would expect, most of these happenings occur on the wonderful CTA. And thus we begin with more tales from the CTA (cue fog and eerie music):

1. Gorilla Boy

I wish I were joking when I say that there was a young man on the CTA one morning pretending to be a gorilla (or at least some kind of primate). He was not wearing a costume or anything, but instead beat his chest, hooted, hollered, grunted, and periodically swung from the bars (a real feat since there are really no horizontal bars on the El). I am also unsure as to whether he was pretending to be a gorilla or whether he actually thought he was a gorilla. He was by himself and not showing off for any friends, which leads me to believe the latter may be true.

2. The Bag Ladies

I have had the pleasure of running into these two women twice (and I mean that without a trace of irony). The Bag Ladies are two elderly women who travel around with two small carts (the kind you see older city people using to carry their groceries home). These carts are absolutely over flowing with clear garbage bags full of paper. The carts themselves probably measure only 2.5 feet tall. The carts plus the bags, however, tower over me by about a foot.

The Bag Ladies typically take up one whole end of an El car. They park their carts in the area reserved for a wheel chair and then line the rest of the space with paper from the bags. Having only run into them on the Red Line I assume that they just ride different lines back and forth to escape the cold.

The first time I encountered the Bag Ladies I was rushing to make the northbound Red Line. I ran up the stairs as I heard the train arrive and bee-lined into the first available door. One Bag Lady stood in the threshold of the door while the other picked up all the papers spread along the floors and walls (I don’t even know how they managed that). Bag Lady #2 was very methodical in how she picked up the paper. I do not remember seeing the expected gradual progression of clutter to spotless. It was simply like there was paper there and then it was gone. She handed the paper to Bag Lady #1, who swiftly tucked them into the top garbage bag. When they had double-checked to make sure they had everything, Bag Lady #2 called to the conductor, “Okay! We’re done now! Thanks!” My friend who was waiting for the southbound Red Line texted me later to say that the Bag Ladies had simply boarded the southbound train and set up their paper camp at the end of one car.

The second time I met the Bag Ladies was as I headed downtown one evening. I stepped onto the Red Line looking down at my phone and stood with my back to one of the walls. When I looked up I noticed two carts parked in the handicapped section. They were piled high with clear garbage bags. The surrounding areas where completely white in a blanket of paper. I looked over and there were the Bag Ladies. They wore their same matching black leather trench coats and red and green plaid winter scarves. Bag Lady #1 was sleeping as she sat upright. Bag Lady #2 sat beside her to serve as a prop. As the train moved, Bag Lady #2 picked up bits of trash around her. When the train came to its next stop, Bag Lady #2 got up and threw all of these items off the train.

A student boarded at Loyola and took a seat across from the Bag Ladies. Like everyone my age, she immediately began playing with her phone. Obviously aware of their eccentricities, Bag Lady #2 (the apparent alpha of the two women) leaned across and asked the young girl to please not hold her phone completely upright. The Bag Ladies were used to being gawked at and she explained that they did not want to suspect anyone of trying to take their picture. The student seemed a bit taken aback, but happily complied. Never before have I witnessed such a polite and surreal conversation. I made sure not to point my phone towards them either.

3. You’re So Pretty

I catch the same train to work every morning: 10:37am. Through a series of trial and error I learned that this one gave me both a good chunk of my morning to slowly get ready, while also getting me to the theatre right around 11am (even on the days when it stops randomly). One morning, however, I lounged a bit too long and missed my train. As I waited around for the 10:45 a man approached me. He looked to be in his late fifties, balding, and wore owl-like glasses. “Excuse me,” he said, “can I just tell you that you are really pretty?”

“Oh thank you,” I responded. I’m certainly never one to turn down a compliment.

“Yeah. You are just very very attractive. I think you are the nicest looking girl I have seen in weeks.”

“Well thank you very much.”

The man strolled down the platform.

I was constructing an email to my office manager explaining that I was going to be late when Owl Eyes approached again. “Is that your natural hair colour?” he asked.

“Yes it is.”

“Wow. You are just really pretty.”

“Well thank you very much.”

He left again.

I finished the email to the office manager and hit ‘Send'. “The train’s coming.” I looked up. Owl Eyes was smiling widely at me and pointing down the tracks. “The train’s right there,” he said.”

“Oh good,” I replied.

“You are really really pretty.”

“Thank you.” The flattery was swiftly moving to Creep Land.

“You are just the nicest girl I have seen in weeks. Thank you.”

“Thanks.” My mind had gone into temporary shock from the unwanted and surprising attention. The train arrived. I waited to see what car Owl Eyes was boarding and then made sure to get on another one. I knew I couldn’t handle more “you’re so pretty” remarks in an enclosed space for ten minutes.

Everyone departed the train at Howard and waited for the Red Line. I texted my best friend to share the strange encounter.“You are just so pretty.” I turned with a mixture of horror and disbelief. Owl Eyes had found me on the platform. What exactly was the point of all this? What did he get out of it? “Do you go to Northwestern?” he asked.

“No,” I responded and resisted the reflex to tell him what I was doing in Chicago.

“I went to Northwestern. I wasn’t very smart though. I’m a good man. I’ve always said, It’s better to be a good man, than a smart man.”

“Ah.” I inched closer to a young guy standing at the front of the platform. I thought that if Owl Eyes didn’t let up them I might be able to somehow act like I was there with someone.

“You are just so pretty."

“Thank. You.”

Mercifully, the Red Line arrived. Once again I waited for Owl Eyes to board before I chose my car. When I got off at my stop, however (and a stop that is not even that popular to boot!), there he was. Owl Eyes stopped at the top of the stairs and waited for me. He smiled as I passed, but I was fed up with being polite. A few months in the Big City has caused me to lose what Southern niceties I once possessed. I booked it out of the train station, my eyes fixed on the ground.

I crossed the road and headed for the theatre. When I glanced behind, there he was: Owl Eyes a mere few feet behind me. I don’t believe the man meant any harm, but I was now completely pissed off and ready to verbally attack if he spoke one more word. I turned sharply at the ramp to the theatre. Owl Eyes stopped momentarily and then continued on his way.

I learned a valuable lesson that day: I will never again miss my train.

4. Twiggy

Last but not least, I will end with perhaps my favourite of the El Eccentrics: Twiggy. I first saw Twiggy back in January when we both waited for the Purple Line. Twiggy immediately caught my eye because not only did she wear an Obama 2012 button (go Twiggy!), but she chewed a twig. The sight of the twig piqued my interest and I made sure to get as close to Twiggy as possible to see if what was hanging out of her mouth was indeed a twig. I thought that perhaps it was a sprig of rosemary or some other herb. Maybe this was a cold remedy I hadn’t heard of. Upon closer inspection I learned that it was an actual twig.

As we road the train, Twiggy looked intently at the elderly man sitting across from her. Twiggy herself was no spring chicken, but she looked to be in her mid-fifties. This man was easily in his eighties. “You’re looking nice,” Twiggy said. She waited for the man to look around when no one responded. She gestured to his outfit, “You look very spiffy.”

“Oh why thank you,” the old man said.

“Are you goin’ somewhere special?”

“No, no. Just headed downtown for a few things.”

“Well you look very nice.”

“Why thank you.”

Not yet completely fascinated by Twiggy I drifted off into some other thought. When I came back to The World on the El Twiggy was asking the man if his wife had dressed him. The man’s eyes misted over. “No ma’am,” he responded. “I do not have a wife anymore, thank you.”

“What?” Twiggy exclaimed. Oh no, I thought, please tell me you are not about to try and pick this man up. And yet: “A good looking man like you shouldn’t be left on his own,” Twiggy cooed. “How could she possibly leave you?”

“My wife has passed away, if you please, ma’am.”

“Oh well that’s a shame.” (Tone translation: "Hello, rip for the picking!”)

Twiggy continued to try and schmooze with the old man, but it was obvious that he was in his own world thinking of his wife. Behind my sunglasses I glared at Twiggy. “Chew your damn twig and let the man be,” I wanted to say.

Since this day, Twiggy and I have gotten on and off at the same train stops a total of twelve times. Twiggy wears the same outfit: canvas pants, light blue Nikes, periwinkle rain jacket, and the Obama button. Twiggy looks exactly the same from day to day (it seems like even strands of gray hair stay in the exact same place). The only thing that changes is her twig. About every three days Twiggy is chewing on a new twig, which you can tell because the leaves on the twig are different (for a while I thought maybe she was just so excited to find green leaves in winter that she wanted to carry them around with her as long as possible).

It is obvious that Twiggy is lonely. Whenever there is a single elderly person on the train, Twiggy sits as near to them as possible and gradually starts a conversation. Unfortunately it is also obvious that Twiggy lacks common social cues. If she speaks to a man then she immediately inquires as to whether he has a wife or not (each time the man has been a widower). If it is a woman (typically not entirely “normal” looking whereas the men look very put together) Twiggy asks where she works and then asks what hours she works.

I say that Twiggy is lonely, but this does not necessarily mean that she is alone. A small man named Jacques rides on Twiggy’s shoulder. I believe that Twiggy and Jacques used to be an item because Twiggy now scolds Jacques for his interest in younger women. Twiggy speaks harshly to Jacques on this subject, but there is a definite sound of hurt in her voice at the same time. Twiggy has also complained of Jacques “getting in [her] way” and has threatened to flick him off her shoulder. These two can get into some very heated discussions although it is not entirely clear whether Jacques is fighting back or just trying to explain himself.

The last time I saw Twiggy, we were the sole occupants of the train car. If you haven't noticed, I've made it a habit to sit or stand as close to Twiggy as possible so that I can hear everything that she says. We sat across from one another, bobbing periodically with the movement of the train. I wondered if Twiggy recognized me as the girl who always boards the train with her. She stared at me over the top of her glasses. With my sunglasses on and earphones in place, I kept my head turned stoically towards a poster that read "Tucson: The REAL Southwest." Inside my two halves battled it out. One part wanted to welcome a conversation with the woman I had been observing for almost two months. What would we talk about? Could I bring up the name Jacques and see how she responded? Would this then mean that we would have to talk to each other every time we rode the train? Could I ask her about the twig? The other part of me did not want to engage Twiggy because I did not want to ruin the magic that is Twiggy. Talking to Twiggy would be like talking to your favourite movie star and then you have to face the fact that he is just a man, who is a talented actor and not actually Mr. Darcy.

I kept my eyes fixated on the cactus and laughing cowgirl in the poster. I was not ready to give up my Twiggy.

Now You See It, Now You Don't

I have always thought of myself as an independent person. Being a military brat and an only child I just assumed this was an inherent trait. Having spent the past two years moving from state to state, however, I do find myself question just how independent I really am. I am independent enough to entertain myself when I have to and although I do not enjoy being more or less "on my own" I do adapt to it and find a few upsides. Where I am beginning to learn I am not so independent is in my general well-being. Does that make sense? Let's take cooking for instance: yes, I can cook, but I do not like to cook. This means that my meals primarily consist of sauteed vegetables and pasta although lately the vegetables have fallen by the wayside and my dinners have been pasta and cheese. I almost never buy milk because I do not drink it fast enough and the primary staple of my diet is Special K cereal. Sometimes in the morning I will have an egg. When I really sit down and look at this I think: how do I live? Shouldn't there at least be a salad in there? Maybe more protein than just an egg on the odd morning? This is the type of bland diet I used to chide friends for in college. My roommates and I used to tell one of our friends (turkey, pita, ranch dressing, and Pops cereal) that he was going to get scurvy. Now I wonder: am I going to get scurvy? Or more importantly: will I even know if I get scurvy?

About two weeks ago my contacts began hurting my eyes. I would put the lenses in my eyes and would immediately begin tearing up and sniffling. Of course, this is just one of the downsides to being a contact-wearer so I chalked it up to a scratch in my contacts. I continued to wear my contacts everyday. My glasses have not been updated since I was in high school so they are pretty much useless to me.

As the week progressed I became mildly sensitive to light. If I was looking at someone who was sitting with a light behind them I found it hard to look at the person. My bedside lamp became a nuisance as well and there were times when I had to stare at the floor on the CTA because the sun was too bright. My eyes looked and felt puffy and tired even if I didn't feel all that fatigued. There were also times when the veins in my eyes were so prominent that it almost looked like my eyes were bloodshot.

At first I blamed all of these symptoms on my lack of rest. I say "rest" and not "sleep" because I was getting as much sleep as I always have (in bed by 12:30 or 1am and up somewhere between 7:30 and 10am). My schedule, however, had become somewhat chaotic over the past month and I had very little downtime. I thus figured that my body was just exhausted and was expressing this through my eyes (and the noticeable veins were a result of dehydration). I iced my eyes, dabbed them with anti-wrinkle cream and soldiered on. It wasn't until my sensitivity to light increased twofold that I really thought of my eyes as being anything other than tired.

I finally admitted I might have an eye problem when the fluorescent light at work caused me to look away. A meeting with my manager forced me to look at a dark corner of the room because she sat with a large window behind her and the dim bar lighting at our Bingo Benefit caused me to constantly rub my teary eyes. The morning after Bingo I called an optometrist. My eyes had greatly worsened overnight and were now glazed over, in excruciating pain, and puffy to the point where it looked like I had been sobbing all night. To top it off, I had recently developed a severe cold and sounded akin to Minnie Mouse (not even an exaggeration unfortunately). I called the optometrist and attempted to make an appointment for the next day (I still had to go to the theatre after all!):

"We have an opening at 3:30 today and 2pm tomorrow," the chipper receptionist said.

"I'll go with 2pm tomorrow," I squeaked.

"Okay. Be sure to bring your health insurance card and a photo ID tomorrow."

"K."

"Do you wear contacts?"

"Yes."

"Glasses?"

"I have them, but they don't really work so I just wear glasses."

"Are you having a problem with your contacts?"

"You know, I'm not really sure. For about the past two weeks I've just been growing more and more sensitive to light and it's finally gotten to the point where I can't have any lights on around me."

"Oh...are you sure you want to come in tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I haven't decided if I'm going to call in sick today or not."

"Do your eyes hurt, ma'am?"

"Like my actual eyeballs?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Yeah. Quite excruciating really."

"How long have they been hurting?"

"About two weeks."

Silence.

"Ma'am, we can squeeze you in at 10:30 this morning. Do you think you could make that?"

Now I know things were serious. I made the 10:30am appointment and called in sick to work. When I got to the doctor's office they found that I did not have health insurance to cover an optometrist. My insurance covers medical doctors only. The optometrist was a very nice man, however, and took pity on how I was almost having to close my eyes under his lights. "Let me just take you in the back and take one quick peak," he said.

I sat down in the examination chair and Dr. Eyes swiveled the phoropter at me (I thought phoropter would sound better than 'eye examination thingy'). I placed my chin in the chin-rest, Dr. Eyes turned the beam of light on and I immediately whipped my head back in pain. Apparently even in that mila-second Dr. Eyes saw all that he needed to and exclaimed, "Whoa that's bad!" He coaxed me into letting him looking into my other eye for the same length of time and then swiveled the phoropter away.

"Can you be without your contacts?" he asked.

"I mean, I can, but I prefer not to. As long as I don't drive -"

He stopped me. "It actually wasn't a question. You will have to go without your contacts."

"Oh."

"Come with me," he said. We went back to the reception area where Dr. Eyes immediately picked up the phone and began dialing. He rifled through a rolodex and handed me a business card. "Do you know where that is?" he asked. I had just assumed he had given me his business card. I looked down and saw the address for an eye surgeon. Before I could respond, Dr. Eyes began speaking to someone on the phone.

"Hi, this is Dr. Eyes, is Dr. Surgeon in? No? Well I have a patient here who needs to see him -" he turned to me, "what's your schedule like today?"

"Open."

"When is your first available appointment?" he asked into the phone. "2pm? Great. And have Dr. Surgeon calls me when he gets in. I want to explain the situation to him." He hung up then phone and gave me detailed directions to Dr. Surgeon's office.

"Is this bad?" I asked as loudly as I could.

"You have a cold, right?" I nodded. Thank you, Mr. Obvious. "This can often happen with a cold," he said.

"This only happened two days ago," I said, pointing to my throat.

"Oh." Dr. Eyes looked at my answers on the What is Wrong With You Today sheet. "Well Dr. Surgeon can help you out and then when you need new contacts I can prescribe those to you."

I left not sure if I should be feeling just a little bit panicked. I immediately called my mother so I could wonder aloud to someone what would happen if I needed eye surgery. It suddenly hit me how alone I was in case of an emergency.

At 2pm sharp I was sitting in Dr. Surgeon's office, filling out another What is Wrong With You Today form. A nurse called my name and led me into an examination room. My voice was fading rapidly and the young girl seemed miffed that she had to keep leaning over to hear me. Finally, Dr. Surgeon entered and asked me a few basic questions about my symptoms. He then brought his phoropter to my face and, like a case of déjà vu, he shined the light into my eye and immediately exclaimed, "Whoa that's bad!" Had I had the voice I would have said, "WHAT is so bad?? Will somebody tell me?" Instead I waited while he checked the other eye. "Yep, it's in both eyes," he said. "That is very inflamed." He wrote me a prescription for steroid drops, told me to stop wearing my contacts indefinitely and to come back in one week.

I went home and spent the rest of the day under my covers. Luckily the maintenance man had been by that morning to replace my blinds which had collapsed the week before so my room with nice and dark.

While lying in my Bed of Pain, it struck me how I really do not take care of myself when living on my own. When I was back in my original apartment in Evanston I was chided for only having eggs, almond milk, Special K cereal and soy sauce. Aware that I am slightly iron deficient, I never took my iron pills until my boyfriend came and stayed with me and literally put one in my hand every morning. I also never fixed the broken blinds in that apartment until he showed up and let's not even get started on my current lack of fresh fruit and vegetables (although I do have a mango!).

Basically, what this experience has taught me is: health-wise, I am not as independent as I hoped. I apparently need someone else there to remind me to eat more than just Special K and almond milk and that maybe light sensitivity is not a symptom of being tired. Without other people -- I fall apart!

Then again, I haven't even come close to dying yet so I must be doing something right. And thanks to steroids, my eyes are whiter than they've ever been!

New Year, New Beginnings, and No Nikki

Hello dear readers! This blog post is much overdue and I am very sorry that it has been well over a month (and nearing two months!) since my last post. Consequently, this post will not be a humourous/rant-like story, but a quick round-up of all that has happened since Creatures of the El.

Let's begin with the end, the end of my time at Skokie Theatre. My last week at Skokie Theatre was full of enough back and forth contradictions by Nikki that I am quite certain I have shortened my life by about two years. I scrambled to finish my lobby display for BLACK PEARL SINGS!, which had been left until the last minute because Nikki thought it best to let the rough drafts sit for about a month. Assured and annoyed that I was not going to stick around for an extra two months (even though we had established a Dec 21st end-date, Nikki had asked me to stay until the end of February, but I had already excepted a Winter/Spring internship elsewhere) Nikki apparently made it her mission to make my last week a living hell. Her comments and corrections on my lobby display boards focused heavily on language. Nikki no longer liked the way I wrote. One such sentence she quarreled with was one she had already had me trim and shorten, saying audience members did not need things "spelled out for them." (Meaning, I did not have to mention The Great Depression and President Roosevelt. Simply talking about Roosevelt led people to assume I was also talking about The Great Depression.)

This was my sentence: "Roosevelt did not forget the plight of the arts in his attempt to put the nation back on its feet."

Nikki asked, "What plight? How were the arts having a plight?"

"They struggled?" I said, not quite sure whether her confusion was over the word "plight" or the use of it in the sentence. "The struggle that they have always had? And because it's the arts...and The Great Depression..."

"Yeah, but what plight? It doesn't make sense."

Being the child of two artists, I typically would have chalked up Nikki's confusion to naïveté about the art world. Perhaps some people only notice pieces in fine art galleries or only know artists like Annie Leibovitz. Perhaps there are some people who believe artists do not struggle, but actually have the perfect job and get to lay around home, playing with crayons and clay all day.

Nikki, however, was a theatre artist. I knew for a fact that she had dabbled in acting once and since she was a Resident Dramaturg before even reaching the prime age of thirty, I am certain that she struggled in that field. Therefore, her confusion and fixation on the word "plight" thoroughly threw me. I couldn't think of an adequate response except to repeat myself.

"They struggled," I said,"because it was The Great Depression. And artists always struggle...because it's art..."

In the end, Nikki had me change the sentence to, "In his attempt to put the nation back on its feet, Roosevelt did not forget how much artists had struggled during The Great Depression."

After "plight" was successfully vanquished, Nikki found new words and phrases to conquer: "instrumental prowess" was changed to "talents" (I liked "instrumental prowess", dammit!), music could not be an "area" of The Great Depression, and I had to choose whether to consistently say "the U.S." or "the United States". (In regards to the last one, I went with "U.S." because I had shortened it in some areas purely for spacing issues. After changing all twelve boards where the U.S. was mentioned Nikki said she preferred "United States"...of course she did.)

Finally, after all the stress and turmoil was through and the boards were at a place that Nikki deemed adequate, my internship was over. To celebrate, Nikki took me to "our place", Chipotle, for a post-mortem. It was over this meal that Nikki gave me her evaluation of my time as her intern. Allow me to summarize:

1. "Your writing is juvenile."

Okay, I will give Nikki this -- my writing is not perfect. I am well aware that it is far from professional, which is why I attempt to keep up this blog and a handwritten journal. Practice makes perfect after all and it is my greatest hope to be paid for my writing one day. However, "juvenile" isn't exactly the word that comes to mind when I think about my writing (although if you agree with her, please send me a private message either on facebook or gmail; if two people say that my writing is juvenile then perhaps they are on to something). When I think "juvenile" I think high school and someone who has not yet found their voice in writing. I have found my voice, Nikki! Of that I am certain.

2. "You do not volunteer enough and only do the minimum of what is expected of you."

I am not sure if I mentioned this in a previous blog or not, but when I first began at Skokie Theatre I asked for more to do. When I heard about an event happening over the weekend I offered to help out or at least observe. On numerous occasions I told Nikki, "I'm happy to help out with whatever. I'm here for this internship after all and I'm not usually doing anything when I am not here so I'd be happy to come to as many things as possible." There were a few instances where Nikki even invited me to a theatre function and then either uninvited the day before the event (least we forget the Stephen Schwartz saga!) or promised to tell me when/where the thing was happening, but would then forget until the affair had already passed. Forgive me, Nikki, but after a month and a half of that I gave up.

3. "You do not handle criticism well."

I am sad to admit that this is one of my weakest areas. I do not handle criticism well, although I have gotten better with age. And I honestly do believe that when I receive constructive criticism I do handle it well. During my four years at Kalamazoo College I was in a plethora of critique groups and with each note on my writing I thought, "Okay, I can see why that isn't needed," or "I really love this sentence, but if this many people don't then it's got to go." However, Nikki's criticisms towards the end just became plain bitchy (and I am sure my annoyance began to show on my face). After demolishing "plight" Nikki waited until we were through two more revisions before announcing she no longer cared for the new sentence. She stated that she didn't like the word "struggle" and suggested we change the sentence to something about "the plight of the arts." My eye twitch most likely gave away the fact that her critiques were beginning to wear on me.

4. You seem more interested in Chicago itself rather than the Chicago theatre scene.

Nikki made this point because she had remembered me mentioning going to the Lincoln Park Zoo and Adler After Dark (a night when the planetarium was open until 11pm). However, she did not remember the numerous times when I told her what play I had seen the night before, hoping we could talk about it (call me crazy, but it's the student in me -- I want to talk about plays with my "mentor"!). In fact, after seeing THE AMISH PROJECT (an extremely powerful one-woman show about a massacre at an Amish school house) at the American Theatre Company, I attempted to talk about the performance with Nikki four times. Each time Nikki responded with her usual, "That's great, Georgia! Let me just finish a few things [in my cubicle] and then we can talk about it." That talking never happened. Like my lack of volunteering, I gave up talking about non-Skokie Theatre theatre with Nikki after two months.

5. You seem more suited for commercial theatre and specifically theaters in the South, since that's where you're from.

...There are no comments to this that do not include a long string of profanity. (Also, this was the first time Nikki mentioned me being from the South. Until this moment, she had always referred to me as being from Michigan. Why? Because I learned during my last month at Skokie Theatre that Nikki had never actually read my cover letter, which begins with how I ended up in the South and all the crazy characters I have encountered there. Since I was living on Mackinac Island when Nikki interviewed me I was therefore from Mackinac.)

And thus concluded my time at Skokie Theatre. Will I miss it? The theatre itself is very nice, the plays are wonderful, and I will always geek-out for Dramaturgy work, but will I miss the internship itself? Not one damn bit. You can transcribe your own dissertation, Nikki! (Ah yes, did I mention she had me transcribe a poorly recorded tape-deck interview she had conducted in a crowded cafe with two old women? And did I mention that she told me not to mention it to anyone at the theatre because it was actually for her dissertation and not for Skokie Theatre? Yeah...good times.)

My parents and I spent our Christmas holiday on the warm beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula. Not a huge one for traditions, my mother has begun planning trips for Christmas so that way we skip the hubbub and stress of a traditional Christmas. Since 2009 we have flown out to the Grand Canyon, swum with manatees in the Florida rivers, dolphins in Orlando pools, and now turtles in the Caribbean Sea.

Not counting Cuba and Canada, Mexico is the first non-European country I have ever been to. (I do not count Cuba because I was living on an American base and Canada because...well it's Canada - Kari, I hope you don't read these!) The language barrier itself was fascinating because it was honestly something I had not even considered. In Europe, public announcements in train and plane terminals are typically made in English first and the country's native language second. While waiting at the departure gate in the Miami International Airport, I was surprised to hear primarily Spanish spoken over the intercom. The flight attendants would say one or two numbers in English, but that was about it. Even the Customs slip was only in Spanish! My parents (who do know Spanish) were sitting a few rows ahead of me so I had to ask the woman next to me to translate the questions that weren't just, "Name, address, birth date, etc etc."

My mother had booked us a wonderful beach condo in Akumal, a small town known for eco-tourism. Unlike Cancun, which was an hour north of us, Akumal is much less Disneyland-ish and still rich with Mayan and Mexican culture. This sleepy town has become popular among ex-patriots because of its efforts to protect sea turtles. During our first day in Akumal, some fellow tourists told us about a bay where we could swim and were likely to see turtles grazing in the kelp grass. I am happy to say that these people (well, they were children actually) were not just full of it! The next afternoon we went snorkeling at this beach, the main beach of Akumal, and while stalking a cuttlefish I was suddenly side-swiped by a fellow swimmer. I looked over to give the obtrusive swimmer a nasty look and lo-and-behold -- there was a green turtle! Swimming parallel to me he measured the length from my head to the middle of my thigh. He looked at me sideways, took a gulp of air and dove under the waters. Thinking I had happened upon some rarity, I followed the turtle for what felt like an hour. Little did I know that I would swim with nearly fifteen turtles over the next few days.

Besides stalking sea creatures, my parents and I explored a few Mayan ruins (Coba and the beach ruins at Tulum), swam in the renowned cenotes, and ventured into the Sian Ka'an Ecological Reserve. (A word to the wise: when the policeman tells you it's not smart to drive into the reserve in a small sedan, listen to him. The road is so riddled with bumps, ditches, and miniature sink holes that it makes Disney's Thunder Mountain rollercoaster seem like the Dumbo ride -- literally.) We ate amazing Mexican food and I have discovered a new love: Chilaquiles.

The three of us were certainly sad to say goodbye to Mexico after our week-long stay. Although we live less than five miles from the Atlantic Ocean, it was nice to swim in non-chlorinated water where you could still see your feet even when you were only in up to your ankles. I also felt a personal amount of triumph when, the night before we left, a woman asked me, "Como esta?" and I answered, "Bien!" instead of my typical, "Ja?"

After Mexico, I was fortunate enough to spend ten days at home. This time was marred by a sudden tragedy that I will not go into, but my time back in Glynn County was exactly the relaxation and friend/family immersion that I needed. I headed back to Chicago on January 11th, just in time to catch the horrendous snowstorm that was making its way from Tennessee to Illinois. On the first day of the drive my car slipped on ice four too many times on I-75 and I had to find a hotel before even making it out of Kentucky. Later that night I learned that northbound I-75 in Tennessee had been shutdown for the night due to ice. The next day's drive in daylight was absolutely no improvement and the normal five hour drive from Louisville, KY to Chicago took nearly seven hours (and a lot of white-knuckle driving and interstate cursing).

Miraculously, I survived and am now back in Chicago/Evanston. I am at a new theatre (Heartbeat Theatre) and a new apartment. I still feel like I am very much lacking in the "social" department, but I'm doing what I can and staying oddly busy. I have also been riding the CTA daily and will probably devote another post to the eccentric riders of the El.

I guess that's enough for tonight! I will try much harder to post more frequently. Happy New Year to everyone and thank you for continuing to read my writing! If I am ever published, I'll give you all a free copy of whatever it is I have written.

Creatures of the El

Everyone knows public transportation can be a harrowing experience at times. We’ve all sat next to that person who snored on the plane, smelled bad on the bus, or perhaps just sat too close for comfort on the train. I’ve certainly had my fair run-ins with public transportation characters: the schizophrenic preacher (I wish I was kidding) who simultaneously hit on me and tried to convert me while on a Greyhound bus; the woman who was sobbing on the El, engrossed in a Self Help book; the two German men on the sleeper between Venice and Köln who told jokes all through the night; and who could forget the physical brawl between a man and woman that I found myself caught between as I desperately tried to board an over-packed Tube. Public transportation can be scary and you never know what Dateline special you may inadvertently find yourself a part of.

Last week I had an interview for a job that I was in no way qualified for. I applied to the position out of sheer boredom at work one day and my only thoughts were, “They don’t require a cover letter? Sweet. Don’t need to exert any effort then!” Half an hour later I got an email asking if I could come down for an interview. The position I had applied for was Social Media Manager. Sure, I am on facebook nearly every hour throughout the day, I know about Twitter and I keep a blog, but a Social Media Manager I certainly am not. Nevertheless, they showed some interest so I turned up.

As it turns out, this company knew as much as I did that I was unqualified for the position. They had asked me in for an interview because my resume “fascinated” them. The manager was thrilled I had worked for the National Park Service and adored Mackinac Island. He was also a native of Alabama and stated, “My heart goes out the fellow Southerners.” After explaining to me as nicely as possible that I wasn’t actually qualified for the job and therefore would most likely not be getting it, the manager asked if I might consider a part-time internship. I asked what the internship would be and he replied, “I’m not really sure yet. We would sort of have to create one for you. I would just really really like to fit you in here.” I left not knowing if I should feel flattered or slighted (the internship would be, of course, unpaid).

Per habit, I immediately called a close friend on my walk back to the El (the company was located in Uptown). I told her of the trippy experience and related another Twilight Zone-esque interview I had experienced the week prior when I had been told (by the interviewer) that I must have forgotten to wear my lipstick that day. We scoffed over the nerve of Miss Lipstick as I boarded the Red Line. The car was packed so I had to stand. Just a few feet away from me stood an unstable (both physically and mentally) homeless man I had seen once before on the El. Normally he traveled from car-to-car, panhandling. Tonight, he swayed dramatically from side to side, distressing the commuters around him. As my friend told me about her day, Unstable unbuttoned his pants. He slid them to his knees, looked down, and pulled them back up. He then went and sat beside a college student, who was trying very hard to seem immersed in his Physics textbook.

The train pulled up at the first stop. Seats near me were vacated and I took one of the window chairs. An Indian woman and her boyfriend sat in surrounding seats. My friend continued to talk about recent happenings in her job, but I suddenly noticed the entire car had gone completely silent. The doors remained open and everyone seemed uncomfortable in their seats. Suddenly, the train conductor along with a CTA security guard boarded the car. They approached Unstable and asked him to leave the premises.
I continued to give hushed one-word responses to my friend and felt bad that it was becoming obvious that I was distracted. I wanted to narrate all that was happening, but felt it inappropriate as the security guard escorted Unstable from the platform. The train conductor strode to the front of the El.

I again tried to shift my attention to my friend, but was then distracted by the immediate passenger gossip:

“Did you hear what they said? The code the police said into their radio?”

“Gang bang.”

“Yes! I heard it, too. They said ‘gang bang,’ didn’t they?”

“What do you think that means?”

The woman beside me seemed more offended by Unstable’s smell and pulled out a bottle of perfume. She sprayed the air, hitting the side of my face in her aromatic circle. My coughing perplexed her and she asked if I thought the fragrance smelled bad.

By this point my friend’s call had graciously dropped and I was able to text her a quick synopsis of what had been taking place since I boarded the Red Line. Just as I hit Send, Unstable jumped triumphantly into the car. He puffed out his chest and stared valiantly at those brave enough to make eye contact. Movement on the platform startled him and he dove behind my seat. The CTA security guard walked swiftly past the open doors and a young girl sitting across the aisle from me sprang after him. Unstable looked around for a less obvious hiding place when a man across the car called him over saying there were plenty of empty seats where he sat. Unstable took his rooster stance once again and strutted across the car. The young girl returned followed by the security guard, train conductor, and a cop. They once again approached Unstable and asked him to leave the train.

The excitement finally over, the conductor made an announcement that, due to the delay, the train would be running express and would skip the next seven stops. Three quarters of the car departed leaving only myself and five other people: the Physics student, a small Hispanic woman, a young girl with a mutilated face, the man who had offered Unstable a seat, and a guy with amazing dreadlocks. The doors closed and we finally left the platform after our nearly fifteen minute delay.

The car bounced along hurriedly, the conductor trying to make up for his lost time. I continued to text with my friend and update her on Unstable’s reappearance. Suddenly, the Hispanic woman who had been behind me took the seat right next to me. I tried not to look taken aback, but wondered why, when there was currently a ratio of about 10:1 seats to passengers, she had decided to sit right next to me. It was then that I noticed the girl with the scarred face looking towards the other end of the car. Unstable was back and shuffling towards our seats. He passed us and opened the emergency door. He left the car and stood on the jack that connected our car to the one behind us.

The girl looked at the Hispanic woman and me. “Is he going to jump?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” the Hispanic woman responded.

“Should we do something?” I asked.

We watched him as he wavered back and forth on the jack. We didn’t want him to jump, nor did we want to open the door and possibly cause him to fall. And let’s be honest, interacting with him wasn’t exactly at the top of anyone’s list either. El cars are not the same as Metra trains. The doors leading from car-to-car are for emergency only because when you leave a car you are outside. There is no platform, no railing, nothing to keep you from being jerked to the ground. Unstable wavered a moment more and then opened the door again. As he re-entered the car the three of us looked around the floor and ceiling as if something else had interested us.

Unstable wandered up and down the car once before taking the seat next to his good buddy Physics Student once more. He then proceeded to bark. Now, I’m not talking “Woof! Woof!” I am talking about legit barking like a dog that really wants to bite the postman. Poor Physics Student. He sat there, textbook book pressed close to his face, but his eyes were glued to Unstable.

Finally, after what seemed like an interminable train ride, we arrived at the second to last stop. Unstable departed of his own free will this time. The next stop was Howard, the end of the Red Line, and those of us traveling to Evanston got off the train and waited for the Purple Line to show. Unfortunately, since this is the L, the majority of the trains are elevated. Meaning: it was bloody cold. Thankfully, Chicago is smart and has placed heaters in many of the awnings. I joined a group of fellow Purple Liners under one of these awnings and updated my friend even further on The Adventures of Unstable.

I was listening to my iPod at this point and it took me a few moments to realize someone, somewhere was yelling. I looked around and saw a large man in a Letterman jacket yelling in my direction. I turned down the volume on my iPod in time to hear him yell, “Ah shoot, man! Y’all stuck up bitches not gonna tell me what train is coming? I’m just askin’ what train is COMIN’!” I immediately deduced that he had asked a general ‘which train is this’ to the crowd I happened to be standing in and no one had answered him. Letterman slowly made his way closer to the crowd, ranting and raving the whole way. Even without smelling his breath, it was very apparent that he was wasted.

“What time it is?” Letterman demanded, stumbling down the platform. “Why ain’t no one tell me what TIME. IT. IS.” He walked right in front of me.

“The time?” I said, hoping to quiet him. My question stopped him suddenly.

“Yeah. What time it is?”

“9:20.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Miss. That’s really nice.”

“Oh you’re welcome,” I said, starting to put my earphone back in my ear.

“What’s your name?” Letterman asked.

“Elizabeth,” I fibbed.

“Elizabeth?” he shook my hand and took a step closer. “That’s a real pretty name, Elizabeth.”

“Thank you.”

“You traveling alone tonight, Elizabeth?”

“Yep. Looks like it.”

“You gotta boyfriend?”

“Yep. He’s meeting me at the next stop.” I looked down at my phone and wondered which of my friends would answer a mayday text the fastest.

Letterman pressed himself, obscuring my phone’s screen with his stomach. “Well he shouldn’t let a pretty little thing like you travel alone.”

“Haha no he shouldn’t,” I responded, shaking my fist in the air. I looked around. My crowd of Purple Liners was noticeably inching away from Letterman and myself. Bastards, I thought.

“I gotta girlfriend,” Letterman announced.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” He looked across the platform. “BABY GIRL!” he yelled, “BABY GIRL! Commere. Commere!”

Baby Girl came over. Baby Girl did not look happy. She slammed a ring of keys into Letterman’s hand. “Take these,” she said harshly and stomped off. Letterman’s confusion over Baby Girl’s attitude gave me enough time to send my “CALL ME NOW THIS IS NOT A JOKE!” text. He then turned back to me and began talking about the Bears. Apparently they had lost that night. Or maybe they won. I honestly wasn’t paying attention.

Like a godsend, my phone suddenly blared a song from ‘Across the Universe’. “Opps,” I said, “I’ve got to get this.” I answered and immediately began telling my friend (who lives in Boston) about how I was just waiting for the train and that I would meet her at the next stop. Letterman continued to talk to me about the Bears and was absolutely oblivious to the phone at my ear. Luckily, a young man walked by reading Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress (one of his earlier ones that came out before The Da Vinci Code made him famous). Letterman snatched the book from the bewildered man’s hands. “I read this book,” he said. “This the sequel? Damn what was that book called? Damn that was a good book, whatn’it?” This momentary distraction gave me enough room to slip between Letterman and the wall he had me trapped against. I thanked my friend for the phone call and waited for the Purple Line to finally bloody arrive.

“Excuse me? Miss?”

I turned around. A woman very similar in appearance and dress to Professor Trelawney from ‘Harry Potter’ (wild curly gray hair, giant round glasses and patch-worked clothing) beamed at me. “What?” I said, having had enough Creatures of the El experiences for one night.

“Is that a dress you’re wearing or a skirt?”

I looked down. Beneath my yellow pea coat was the bottom of my purple and black zigzagged sweater dress. “It’s a dress,” I said, still wondering why on earth this woman needed to know.

“It’s very lovely,” she said. “Very unique. People should wear more stuff that is pretty and unique.” And with that, Professor Trelawney turned and walked away.

The Twilight Zone

Skokie Theater's upcoming show is a dark comedy Christmas play set in England. Rehearsals have been going for two weeks and for about three weeks my supervisor has talked about getting the cast "traditional English treats" as a surprise. When I informed her that I make a damn good scone, she was ecstatic. She warned me that in the near future she would be asking me to bake scones for around forty people. (There are only nine people in the cast plus the director, stage manager and assistant stage manager. I am not sure where these other twenty-eight people came from.)

Sadly, my scone baking extravaganza never happened. Instead, I arrived at the theatre last week and found Nikki on the phone with a "traditional English bakery" she had discovered. She placed an order for two banana cream pies, one mincemeat pie, and a steak and ale pie (the Brits do love their pies). As she recited the theater's Visa Card number into the phone she said, "And I'll be sending my assistant down to pick all that up. Thank you!" She then turned to me, the assistant. She handed me a Post-It note with the bakery's address.

"This is in Skokie?" I asked, already dreading the gas I was going to use for my unpaid position.

"It's in Bridgeport," Nikki answered.

"Where's that?"

"Right near Andersonville."

I breathed a sigh of relief. I still had to drive without being paid, but at least Andersonville (where my Uptown writing group is located) was only six miles below Skokie. I went back to my cubicle, plugged the address into Google Maps and came up with a location on the south side of Chicago. I zoomed in -- the address was located in a neighborhood called Bridgeport.

"Um, Nikki," I said, walking to her desk, "are you sure this is the right place?" I showed her where the address was located. Bridgeport was a little over twenty miles south of Skokie.

"Do you not feel safe going there?" Nikki asked. The south side of Chicago is notorious for crime. "I don't want to send you anywhere that you won't feel comfortable."

('I will feel comfortable if someone gives me gas money,' I wanted to say.)

"No, I'm fine. I just wanted to check," I said hesitantly.

"Great! You should head there around noon. I told them you would pick up the food at one o'clock and the actors will go on break at two."

I left the theatre right at noon. I merged onto I-94 and within three miles encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic. As downtown Chicago inched its way past my car Nikki texted me: "Georgia, I think you already left? Let's talk gas mileage when you get back!" So happy was I that I was actually going to get gas money out of the forty mile trip that it took a moment before I realized it was nearly 12:30 and Nikki had just realized I was gone.

Almost exactly an hour after I left Skokie Theatre and with the city of Chicago filling my rear-view mirror, I finally pulled off the interstate. The distance-tracker on my GPS displayed there was still another mile and a half to go. Strangely, I noticed that further I drove from the interstate, the more dilapidated the buildings became. By the time the congratulatory 'You Made It!' checkered flag appeared on my GPS screen, I was beginning to think a joke had been played on Nikki. Run down homes lined the street, thick steel bars covered windows and doors, a strange man with coke-bottle glasses, a severe limp and metallic wig shuffled along the sidewalk and clusters of boys about my age with saggy pants and dark bandanas stared as I drove by. The most well maintained building was what looked like a Hindu temple. It sat directly across the street from what my GPS told me was Pleasant Bakery: the traditional English bakery. Unfortunately, Pleasant Bakery looked more like Piss-Poor Bakery with its cracked and falling down faded yellow letters and holes in its facade.

I parked in the projects behind the bakery and walked the half block to the front of the building. Like the surrounding tenements, Pleasant Bakery, too, had thick steel bars lining its windows and doors and a padlock chain for extra security. The windows were so clouded that I couldn't discern any sign of life inside. I stood outside the front door for a moment and looked around. I wondered seriously whether I would even find the door unlocked or not.

There is only one word to describe the inside of Pleasant Bakery: "charming." Upon entering the building, I did a double take. Where was the shack I had entered? Where was the dirt and the grime and the crumbling inside to match the rundown-warehouse-full-of-scatters exterior? Pleasant Bakery was nothing shy of a pleasant diner.

Let's start with the smell -- that place smelled AMAZING. The moment I walked through the door I was hit with a wave of savory meats, roasting vegetables, and all other fumes associated with a meat pie or beef stew. A group of college students sat in a corner, each marveling over what the other had ordered. I assume they were writing some sort of review on the bakery because they had each selected a very different entree from one another and were setting up mock studio shots for each dish.

The room itself was simple and classic. The walls were made of dark wood paneling and the floor a beige tile. All the seating was made of half-booth-half-chair and the whole interior had a very homey feel. A counter cordoned off a third of the room. Two women in business suits stood in front of the counter, intently discussing with the cashier what they should order. Behind the cashier was a flurry of activity: men unloaded sheets of pies from large furnace-like ovens; they sprinkled powder over baked goods; some beat dough, sliced meat and chopped vegetables; others carefully squeezed swirls of cream onto desserts.

After fifteen minutes of debate, the two business women finally decided on something to eat. I stepped up to the counter, gave the theater's name and was handed three medium-sized boxes. A cook in the back asked me where the theatre was located (it's not actually called Skokie Theatre). When I replied Skokie, three of the men hooted and exclaimed that that was a long way to drive. "You have no idea," I replied.

Exiting the bakery twilight zone, I looked around the street once more. I was not mistaken -- it was a rundown ghetto. Perhaps the owners of the bakery purposefully destroyed the outside of their building as a means to prevent theft (their food wasn't cheap after all so I'm sure there is some money in there). I envisioned the cashier and some of the cooks taking hammers to the exterior of the bakery. As I rounded the corner with my boxes I stopped short. Two guys in the baggy jeans and bandanas were circling my car, staring into my back and front seats. As I neared, one of them seemed to study my license plate. The sound of the car unlocking itself, however, jolted them both out of their trance. They looked at me, almost as if surprised the car actually belonged to someone. "Um...hi," I said. Opening the door and jumping inside.

The two guys watched as I pulled away. On my mile and a half journey back to the interstate I passed Shuffling Metallic Man, another eccentric looking man-woman with a teacup sized Chihuahua, and two Asian girls who may have been dressed up as Anime characters for Halloween or that was just how they looked. In Bridgeport it's hard to tell.