u s e y o u r h a n d s

So, for the past six or so months, I’ve been taking these very long walks around the city. It started with an eight-nine mile walk home from my office downtown. It’s actually fairly easy to do with good shoes, an iPod and a camera.

I do it to feel independent. To keep off the 75 lbs I lost last year. To find interesting parts of the city. I’ve taken ridiculous amounts of streetart photos this way. I’ve come to rely on Starbucks for clean potties and hot coffee during the walks. I’ve started noticing and researching landmark districts around the city. I’ve walked Milwaukee Ave from the Loop to Devon, from my house to Evanston, and home from downtown numerous times. And it’s something I highly recommend, if you’re looking to fall in love with your city and engender respect for the power of your own feet.

But mainly, I’ve learned that you don’t have to walk the whole way home, as long as you’re headed in the right direction.

My whole body feels like houligans took bats to it. My shoulder is twitching. My calves are screaming. My jaw is clenched shut because I lost my $400 bite block. My hands constantly ache. I need a massage and a vacation.

I rode home yesterday. it was hot and I was exremely thirsty. But I kept hopping on and off my bike to take photos of street art. I’ll post those later. But I got more and more thirsty. At some point, I tried to spit, which instead of landing with a plop on the street, landed in a sticky string on my thigh. Someone should make it their business to teach girls how to spit.

And scene.

So, I’ve started riding my bike a lot. Like eight miles to work and back on an upright seven-speed cruiser. I love, love, love riding my bike in the fresh morning air. On my way to work, I pass the Vienna Beef, Gonella Bread, and Blommer Chocolate factories. And when I turn the corner from Milwaukee to Kinzie, and smell that Blommer air, it’s like heaven. if anything beats that smell of chocolate-warmed air, I have had a good day indeed.

I’m about to take the longest flight I’ve taken since my serious panic attacks have subsided. I’m about to fly with no drugs. No beta-blockers, no Xanax.

I took the metra home tonight and sat cater-corner from a man who was either seriously drunk or seriously depressed. He was stooped, slow, and ate a Corner Bakery caprese sammich slowly, dropping some of it. I wanted to ask him about his ex-wife Janice and his kids and his arthritis.

And i also thought of how much i like my sir, my cat man, my dude.

And now, even though I’m about to fly, even though i’m sort of nervous, i feel okay. okay. and i want to download “one night in bangkok” from itunes. and maybe eat some ice cream.

sigh. i want it all.

I’ve been remiss and the reasons are myriad. I’ve been fighting with my poor paws, afflicted with a painful case of cubital tunnel syndrome, which has been causing my hands to go numb for hours and days at a time. So, there’s that.

And I’ve been working a lot. Yesterday, I celebrated exactly nine months with my current employer, and should tradition hold, I’ll be working somewhere else in three.

And I’ve just been so deep in the muck. I’m seeing a new psychiatrist and am back on medication, but the older I get, the worse it gets. Lately, I can’t shake the chase of a certain key and painful piece of knowledge: that I am so fundamental inadequete as to be hopeless. That there will never be any calm, any respite because I just don’t deserve it. I should take every punch I can possibly serve up because I have not — and cannot — learn to be any better.

It’s hard sometimes. But there are moments when I pick up speed and escape these thoughts. However, my paranoia is coming back big time. It manifests itself thusly: I believe that I will be shot in public by a deranged stranger or that everyone I know hates, hates, hates me. And even saying that in the blog pushes me closer to thinking it could happen.

And I’m listening to Morrissey. “Lifeguard Sleeping/Girl Drowning” is a lovely and appropriate song.

Oh, and I cut all of my hair off. Luckily, not with a straight razor.

WHY IS MY RIGHT HAND ALWAYS COLD??????

Yes, there has been depression lately. But I do believe that, like a misty fog, like a labored metaphor, it is lifting.

My fucking ass fell down our front stairs last Saturday. Now, I have quite a lovely scrape down my right leg and foot, and a dime-sized scratch on my left knee. And I did, in fact, get said scrapes from falling down the stairs as opposed to “falling down the stairs.”

I got a call last Friday that my mother had been taken to the hospital. That she had a head injury. That her teeth had been knocked out. That she had been hallucinating. That nobody knew what had happened.

And instead of being shocked, I felt my brain shrug overwhelmingly. Because sometimes people choose their lives. Because most of the time, you can’t change shit. And because this is just the way it is.

Last night I went to a fundraiser for a girl who had been mugged in Andersonville. And what shocked me was that she said that since she was a “big girl” (six feet or so) that she thought she could fight them off. And as they beat her head against a wall, she realized she was wrong. And I guess, so am I.

I’ll leave you with something funny: A businessman says “I need more profits!” So an eager young associate goes and rounds up Jesus, Mohammed, and Buddha. And the businessman takes a look at these dudes and goes, “Profits not prophets!”

Yeah, I know it wasn’t funny. But have a martini or three. It’ll be funnier then.

Remember when I auditioned for that burlesque show? well, I’m in.

So, what should my stage name be?