Future sounds

The cell phones that I have owned in the past have always had at least
one ring tone I found tolerable. There were the standard issue
corporate logo ring tones, the sound of a rotary phone ringing, the
sound of a pulse phone ringing, the one with the strange cheer and
birthday music. Each was acceptable in its own quirky polyphonic way.

But now we are in the new era of ubiquitous downloaded custom ring
tones. And my bland corporate can bores me.

At the big shindig family reunion this past weekend, my mom and I had
the same ring tone. Can you believe? Oh the confusion. We’d laugh and
say, “Is that your phone or mine?” But I was irked. Not that I mind
copying my mom, au contraire, but I minded that I couldn’t tell if I
was expecting to hear from my husband or my mom’s sister. I just
wanted to know the difference.

I was uninspired as to what to look for in a ring tone until my husband
and I watched “CSI: Miami” Tuesday night. During a pivotal
third-quarter hour death revelation scene, a familiar bit of opera
re-mixed with a Hindu influenced house beat punctuated the drama of the
scene. “That’s it!” I said to Matthew. “It’s from ‘The Magic Flute.’
It’s perfect for a new ring tone.” I jumped up and was off to the
computer to hit our vendor’s website and find the aria. I think
Matthew ignored my typically erratic behavior. I have no idea who
killed whom though. I am kind of curious.

Quick web search, Mozart wrote “The Magic Flute” (sorry I can’t spell
it in German). Quick search of the cell phone website, no “Magic
Flute.” Only three Mozart entries. Hm.

I downloaded “Minute Waltz” by Chopin because that was awfully cute as
a ring tone, but I still wasn’t satisfied. I went back to the website
and clicked on all the classical music entries in order to sample all
the different sounds. Most of them were very dour and only appropriate
for an angry spouse. Some were too light and seemed unhelpful for
getting the receiver’s attention.

But then a random click revealed it. “Lakme Flower Duet.” I don’t
even know what that means! “Flower Duet?” That’s not from “The Magic
Flute” at all! Oh well, it’s the right sounds no matter how mistaken I
was about the origin.

This afternoon I walked to the grocery store on my lunch break. As I
was on my way back to work, riding the elevator to Upper Michigan
Avenue street level, I heard the most beautiful music. Suddenly the
sound of delicate, warbling voices was surrounding me in the elevator.
I was overcome and looked around for a speaker, thinking, “My god,
that music is overwhelming me. It’s so beautiful. It’s like a duet.
It sounds just like the opera I downloaded…”

Yes, it was my own phone. I was awe struck by my little simple cell
phone. I laughed into the receiver, seeing it was my husband, and I
told him the story of the Magic Elevator Ride. He said, “You’re going
to do that every time you hear it ring until you get used to it.” He
is so right. And if it brings such beauty and wonderment into my
world, I don’t mind at all.

Induction ceremony

A friend of mine recently inducted me into adulthood. Particularly,
adult womanhood.

I showed her my shoes, “I’m wearing my trainers today.” This is
different because lately I wear nothing but prescription orthopedic
shoes.

“Oh, nice,” She said.

“Yeah, my feet are hurting though. I accidentally bought them the
wrong size.”

She made the “?” face.

“Well, I bought them in the morning you see.”

I know that sounds kind of irrelevant to shoe size maybe, but to
fitness buffs like my friend and to fitness hangers-on like me, we know
that your feet swell during the day, reaching maximum size some time in
the afternoon. Therefore, the shoes you buy in the morning won’t fit
by 3 pm. At the time of our conversation, it was 3:45 pm, CST, and I
was feeling the afternoon squeeze.

She nodded slowly and used her mock pedantic voice to say, “I see.”

“The shoe lady told me my foot was a wide now, but I said, ‘I have
always been a narrow. I will take a narrow.’”

At this new tidbit my friend exploded into stifled laughter--we were in
a software training seminar—and she was writhing around trying not to
fall off her chair or to laugh disruptively loud. But the hilarity was
too great for her to resist.

“You just acted like a typical woman! You just insisted you wear a
different size and got the wrong shoe!”

This was my moment of induction. As she continued with the belly
laughing, head bobbing, hair shaking enjoyment of my typicality, I got
very serious.

“Oh my god.” My eyes got big, and I put my hand to my mouth in stupor.
“I did just act like a typical woman.”

“Yeah! Ya did!” She sputtered her last chuckle.

I marveled at my own banality. And then laughed along with my friend
at how ridiculous it is to think of me as 1. adult, 2. adult woman, 3.
typical.

I got over the shock of becoming a typical woman, but it made me think
retrospectively. I remember my hometown newspaper running tons of
single panel cartoons about prissy women shoppers insisting to the male
shoe clerk that she has always been a 6 and a half and is still this day.

In addition, the Al Bundy character of “Married, with Children” sold
shoes for a living, and every customer I remember him interacting with
presented the identical scenario. A woman insists she must stuff her
giant middle-aged foot into the size she wore as a debutante. The joke
of these comic scenes is that the man knows better what the woman
really needs.

I remember the wrong shoe size gag in my hometown newspaper’s word
jumbles too. You have a cartoon, a riddle about the cartoon, and
jumble letters from which to make words that then yield the clues to
the riddle. I can do this, as a new inductee, I can create the
scenario. I’ve got a new riddle and cartoon already and waiting for an
illustrator:

Two male sales clerks wearing ties are standing to the right in the
background but are clearly visible and prominently dominating the
scene. In the foreground, a seated middle-aged woman is surrounded by
shoes and shoe boxes. She has a bouffant hair style and she’s wearing
a dress. Though she occupies the foreground, she is in the left and
bottom of the frame, in a diminutive corner of the cartoon, the men are
the primary focus. The customer is trying to force her larger foot
into a smaller shoe. The man on the right says the riddle to his chum,
“If that boat’s a size 6, then my dinghy’s a yacht!”

See? That was so easy, even a shoe-confused woman can make one up.

"Flores para los muertos?"

Sometimes I remember a pharmaceutical company with the name of a
beautiful flower as my grandmother's killer. As she dissolved
gradually into purple veins and sunken muscles, she cried out in pain
more often, held me in her lap less often, and took always more pills
from small, rectangular plastic bottles with graceful cursive writing.

At the time I didn't think the bottles were killing her. At the time I
thought they were unusual boxes of secret-content size and I looked
forward to her emptying another so that I could have it for my
treasures. It was the time before safety precautions, and they had
simple narrow necks with small screw-top metal caps. Perfect for
childhood collections.

My sister and I used the bottles with the beautiful cursive names for
the tiny plastic beads in delicious snow cone colors that you use to
bake faux stained glass sun catchers. I loved that the flower that
made me think of Easter, of spring, of delicate smells and pastel
colors was also the holder of the magic beads that created fragile art
at home. My sister and I were wild about making sun catchers, most of
which were Christmas themed. The warm smell of plastic baking in the
oven and tiny funnels and precise tweezers for perfect placement of
color flakes meant Christmas comfort to me. And the little metal screw
top bottles meant Granny to me.

Somehow on the path to adulthood, the mental image of the flower named
bottles and the Christmas arts and my grandmother's painful, slow
passing got mixed up in my mind. Somehow when I got older and I
understood cancer and in retrospect what all those moans and prayers
really meant, I looked at the bottles again for what they really were.
Typed, neat, pharmaceutical script read "Granny Wy." The flower
bottle didn't save her. The color chips didn't excite me anymore. But
still sometimes when I root through my parents' basement I find a
bottle that says "Granny Wy" and it is still filled with ultra sky blue
beads. It makes my heart hurt that now the flowers smell funereal, not
Easter, and the colors look tedious, not adventurous.

Tonight, I am taking a medicine from the same pharmaceutical company
with the childishly innocent cursive logo. The bottle is a sample from
my sleep doctor, for my insomnia, not cancer. But I push in the foil
stamped over and over "Flower, Flower, Flower," and I screw off the top
that isn't child proof, and I look at the rectangular container with
the fluted neck; I remember. I remember Easter and the smell of the
church filled with flowers and my grandmother asleep in her recliner
weary after another trip to the doctor. And I remember the red and the
blue and the amber beads and my sister's precision as we celebrated
Christmas by dropping one tiny chip after another into small metal slots.

As I push in the foil that says "Flower, Flower, Flower," and I draw up
the cotton, I think all these things, and I wonder if I will sleep
tonight. The sleep of "Flower, Flower, Flower."

Brain-body dilemma

I am deeply sorrowed for the throngs of Christine Wy fans patiently
waiting to hear what strange things I've been thinking or dreaming
lately. The idea journal I keep next to my bed is backlogged with
brilliant kernels waiting to pop. I have no lack of material. What I
have is a lack of schedule.

My sleep specialist has done something to me I have resisted for
years--a regular sleep schedule. It's torture. It's terrible. It's
horrible terrible torture. Really. In bed by 11 pm awake by 8 am. I
know that sounds innocuous, but, number one, my body/brain doesn't do
that. And number two, I really like to write at night.

Getting ready for bed is a reflective time for everyone. For me, it
starts with, "What are my plans for tomorrow?" Then I move on to "What
did I accomplish today?" This metamorphoses into, "What have I done
over the course of my life???" And this is when the certain firing of
old nuerons creates new connections and new ideas. My husband says
it's the connections I make that are interesting. I don't know if
that's the case, but it happens while I'm brushing my teeth. And this
is when my brain ignites my fingers and I want to type out my story.

You see? It's incompatible with the sleep doctor's charms. I'm trying
very hard to be a good patient and give my best efforts to his
treatment, but it's not good for blogging. I don't like to think of
myself as non-compliant, but if to prevent my fingers from exploding
from un-typed missives I must violate doctor's orders, then so be it.
But I promise to do my very best to be healthy and type-y.

Ever your pal,
Christine Wy

Dream entry #4

The other night I dreamed I was an undergraduate again at Western
Kentucky University. The Honor's Program was hosting one of their
campus coffee-house open-mic nights in the old faculty lounge log cabin
(note: nothing in that sentence is made up). Johnny Depp stopped by to
hang out while he was on tour promoting "Pirates of the Carribean: Dead
Man's Chest." He was sitting off to the side, drinking free coffee. I
walked up to him and said, "I loved the first 'Pirates of the Carribean.'"

He smiled, looked up at me through his eyelashes, and said "Really?" In
a very shy way.

"Oh yes, I love swashbuckling very much."

He acted awkward and surprised; I would swear this was the first time
anyone had ever told him they liked the movie, and I continued to
compliment him. I carried on explaining to him all the ways I loved "Pirates of the Carribean," and he was very sweet about it, but then he suddenly had to
leave.

Unfortunately, I hadn't gotten to the most important part of my
conversation, the real reason I wanted to speak to him.

"Wait! Will you be my pen pal? You don't have to write back if you
don't want to!"

Fruits of summer

I have always been afraid of people who don't like watermelon. They don't seem human, as if some alien race had accidentally left one of their emissaries behind on Earth and the whole species abhorred watermelon as some genetic flaw.

On the Fourth of July, this isn't the most obvious blog theme that comes to mind. I could write about how Chicago is like a war zone on
Independence Day as families and friends set off fireworks all over the city. I am surrounded on all sides of the noise of fireworks of the caliber used by small towns for municipal Independence celebrations, only these are being launched in the streets and alleys of all the neighborhoods of Chicago. It's a spectacular display.

Tonight I took the dog on an extra-long nighttime walk, a luxury she rarely gets, but only because I wanted to stay outside and watch the pyrotechnics. Walking along Logan Boulevard, amid all the cacophony and irritated car alarms and police sirens, I smelled watermelon. Maybe it was someone's cheap drug store perfume who had just walked by before me, or maybe out of sight behind one of the fences someone was concluding their Fourth of July picnic, but I distinctly smelled watermelon, and my mouth watered.

I love the mellow, delicate sweetness of watermelon. Its rough chewable texture and simultaneous porosity, its extreme juiciness and its delicate fragility, all signify its ultimate summer fruit perfection. I love the sweet heart of the melon so much that I cut or scoop out the interior to the ring of seeds to save for later. I eat from the seeds to the white rind first, appreciating the tangier flavor of the exterior meat. But the center of the melon, the most perfect part of the watermelon, is sweetness and chewiness sublime. It deserves to be savored separate and last from the rest.

Yet there are people, stymieing people, who don't like watermelon. I'm not sure I trust these people completely. My first best friend in high school liked no melons. I bothered her about it every summer and tried
to persuade her to eat watermelon or cantaloupe, even arguing that honey dew wasn't like the other melons and was so far superior. But nothing would budge her. When pressured she'd say something about a bad memory of a picnic with her estranged birth mother and a germaphobe aunt, but nothing about flavor or texture.

My second best friend in high school liked watermelon with salt. My aunt told me once the white of the melon was best. I think they're both off.

My husband. What a special case. He doesn't like watermelon, but how can I distrust my own husband? What redeems him is that he enjoys cantaloupe, but I still don't understand how a person can like one and not the other. It is like eating Gala apples but not Fuji--they are both apples. For years I couldn't remember that my husband didn't like watermelon, "Mmm, this watermelon is perfect, try some."

"I don't like watermelon."

"What? How can you not like watermelon?"

"I just don't. And I've told you a thousand times."

"I didn't know you didn't like watermelon."

"We've had this same conversation over and over. I don't like watermelon."

"Really? Oh. That's right. Well here's some cantaloupe but it's not as good."

There is a restaurant we used to go to often that serves plates of melon as a complimentary appetizer instead of bread. I used to eat the cantaloupe first as a favor to Matthew so that he could enjoy all the watermelon. Over and over I did this, and then I would be upset that he didn't eat the watermelon I saved for him. Finally I remembered--after years of marriage--to eat the watermelon and not the cantaloupe. But I still try to pressure him from time-to-time. "Are you sure you don't want some of this watermelon? It's perfect."

He can't be completely human. No one sane could resist its mellow twangy sweetness. But at least my magnanimity is never tested. At
least I never have to share.

Fingerprints

Verbal patterns feel so good in our mouths that we are compelled to repeat them, over and over. Our tongues relish pulling back and pursing our cheeks as we bring the sound forward to our lips and say “good to go.” Vocal fingerprints, unlike those on our hands, are utterly transferable and sharable and spread like bacteria from one mouth to another, until we are all so infected with a catch phrase that we don’t know we have it anymore.

A few years ago, I became “Queer Eye” inundated and started saying “Fabulous!” as a joke, rolling my eyes and flopping my hand to show how funny I was. But too many repetitions turned “Fabulous!” into an actual verbal pattern—I couldn’t stop saying it!

I’d say “Fabulous!” then say, “Oh god, I said it again, just fabulous. Oh no! In trying not to say ‘Fabulous!’ I said ‘fabulous!’ This is horrible. Fabulous. See?”

It was a terrible, confusing time for me. Matthew reassured me, saying, “You’re thinking about it too much. If you quit thinking about the word so much it will go away.”

But it wouldn’t. It sat there perched on the back of my tongue waiting to unroll at a moment’s notice. Like an angry, taunting jester, it was there, hanging in my mouth, jumping out when I didn’t want it, out of my control. After I said it, I’d scream at whomever I was with, “I didn’t mean to say ‘Fabulous!’ I’m trying not to say it anymore! You have to understand!” Pretty much everyone thought I was nuts, but it was “Fabulous!” that made me feel nuts. Always there in my mouth, waiting, watching, laughing at me.

And now, “good to go” is staring me in the face. It is a threat. It watches, taunting me, waiting to get into my mouth. “Everyone else is saying me Christine. Try it. ‘Good to go.’ It feels delicious.” It is my siren song. My viper in the Garden of Language Eden. It calls to me, and I flinch every time I read it or hear it. But I resist. “Fabulous!” taught me that I can be weak and succumb to the power of diction, but I also learned I can quit when I try. “Good to go” won’t break my enamel barrier, now that I’m on guard against verbal assault.

Why I *heart* bad media

When TV critics say “Terrible,” I say, “Which channel?” I really enjoy a great big bowl of whipped cream after a day at work: fattening, easy to swallow, no healthful benefits. I know it’s bad, but it’s a way to tune out my brain after thinking all day and laugh at the ridiculousness of popular media. I know that I’m not learning or growing or changing, I just want to unwind for a bit.

Matthew always says, “I don’t see how you watch this stuff.”

I say, “Look how ridiculous they are. We’re worried about getting our car repaired and if the dog needs surgery; they’re worried about which earrings go best with their shoes. Which is funnier?”

Critics said it was like a competition of middle-aged women to see who could wear the tiniest t-shirt. I couldn’t wait. I tuned into “Tuesday Night Book Club” hoping for “The Surreal Life” with books. I got “The Lifetime movie” with booze. I watched one episode. I was compelled to watch the whole hour because my heart ached for them so much. It was like watching a Discovery Channel program on surviving cancer—you can’t just change the station because you’re bored, you have to know how it ends.

I wanted to watch the second and final episode. My remote control hand itched and twitched with the desire to turn it back on and watch the slow motion train wreck continue to spew detritus. But I knew it was bad for me. I knew it wasn’t the bowl of whipped cream I craved and watching would only make me sad again. I resisted watching the final episode, but I’m glad the temptation is no longer there. I’m weak in the face of terrible media. And junk food.

Sweetest let-down

“Tuesday Night Book Club,” gladly, is no more. CBS saddened me more than any tear-jerker movie with this horrible show, and I’m glad they’ve put it out of my misery.

Ostensibly, the show was a reality program about seven female friends sharing intimacies of their lives as they enjoy their book club. Really, these were auditioned and screened strangers who were chosen for the stage-like simplicity of their dramas.

“Book Club” challenged my emotional endurance. My impression is that this was supposed to be an insiders’ look at how women’s troubles are all a soap opera in real life and they can get together and dissect it over boozy social gatherings. Instead, I watched seven women with real emotional, social, relationship crises smear their personal problems all over network television. It hurt.

Their pain was so personal and so common, that I cringed as the producers tried to lighten things up with yet another alcohol-fueled party at which everyone laughed over the surface of their problems. There was the woman who was coping with her husband’s addiction problem and how it had nearly destroyed her family of young children. There was the woman who was trying to decide if she wanted to leave her husband, who was himself obviously desperate that she not go but unable to communicate it. There was the recently married woman who fought with her spouse so much that their every aired utterance was mutually belittling (I found the unnecessarily mean fight over whose fault it was that the dog ate the wedding band especially stomach-turning.) There was the young libertine whose empty life was eroding her from the inside out though she pretended she was the happiest of the lot since she was so carefree. Who am I forgetting? Oh, the pathetic over-drinking, over-rich, over-weight swingers. How creepy? I’m skipping the doctor’s wife whose husband was implied to be closeted gay.

Overarching them all was the gay-divorcee, ever ready to ply the women with liquor and enable them to share heart-wrenching stories of emotional trauma and anxiety, acting as some fake Dr. Phil lousy therapist to get them to spill their inner-most turmoil for the cameras. She betrayed them all. Her plastic helmet hair and omni-present bottle of red and bottle of white made the women’s stories seem not dramatized, but like CBS was trying to reduce real crises to palatable mush. But these were not the manufactured traumas of “Big Brother 4” or “The Real World Season 7.” These were actual women whose lives were really falling apart in front of us. It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t entertaining.

I had high hopes when I tuned in because I love to laugh mindlessly at other people's ridiculous made for TV problems. There was no humor in “Tuesday Night Book Club,” unless the joke was on me.

Dream entry #3

A few nights ago, I was struck with terrible insomnia, and none of my usual tricks were working. I did the weighted eye pillow, the white noise on the bedroom radio, meditation music on my headphones, turned up the air conditioner to cool the room, and nothing was working. Around 1 a.m. I gave up and took a pill my doctor gave me for these emergencies. What resulted was one of the most surreal dreams I’ve ever had.

I was in my parents’ house in my brother’s old room, typing on my laptop. I was writing the most tender, amazing, original romance novel ever, and I couldn’t have been happier with myself. Then the computer died. It gave a quick error message and the screen went black. I looked around the room feeling dazed, and I noticed a reflection in my brother’s mirror.

Outside, in the yard across the street from my parents’ house, the father was spanking his young son for not building the Lego space station he wanted for Christmas. I was sad for the kid because I know how it feels to want something for Christmas and then not be certain what you want to do with it. And the space station was so huge and elaborate, I couldn’t imagine how the kid would ever finish.

Then I heard a noise coming from the street, and I turned back around to look out the window instead of at the reflection. Elephants were marching down the street because the circus was coming to town. Acrobats were leaning off the elephants’ heads in contortionist poses as they came stomping down the hill, clowns walking along beside them in their silly shoes and tiny hats.

I rushed down the stairs to look out the front door to see the elephants, but when I got there, there were no elephants. My dad came behind me on the stairs and asked if I was OK. I sat down on the steps with him and said, “I think I just had a dream that there were elephants on our street.” He said, yes, it was a dream, there were no elephants, and he chuckled at the silly idea.

And then I woke up from the dream really, lying in my bed with the air conditioner blasting and the white noise humming, and I was back to insomnia, sans elephant.

It's a wrap

I bought a sarong as a fashion fresh undergrad in the 1990’s. I saw a friend of mine who served in Africa in the Peace Corps wearing one, and she looked so exotic and unique and relaxed all at the same time. I wanted that too. I went to the fabric store and bought two yards of a rayon material that had an earth-mother sand and water kind of vide to it. I washed it a few times to get the frayed edges going, and voila, it was ready.

Usually I’d wrap it full length around my middle and roll down the top to secure the waist. It turned out to be the most comfortable garment I’d ever owned, and it was perfect for hung-over Friday mornings when I really didn’t want to go to class. On hotter days, I’d fold it in off-kilter half length-wise before wrapping it around my waist. Still the most perfect fashion accoutrement for a young college co-ed ever, quirky and comfortable.

Whenever I ran into older women--meaning anyone over 25--while I was wearing my sarong, they’d always say, “That’s really cute but I couldn’t do that on my body.” I cajoled and said they should try something new and they were being too hard on themselves. They demurred.

I forgot about the sarong after college for a long time. I guess after graduation I never really had an appropriate place to wear something that casual. But when I started packing for a move, there in my closet, I rediscovered the sarong. All of the memories of the fun I had wearing it came back in a rush, and I thought, “It’s time to resurrect the sarong.” I stopped packing and put on the sarong and looked in the mirror. I had turned into the older lady. “That’s really cute but I couldn’t do that on my body.” It wasn’t a self-esteem thing, I really didn’t have the narrow hips and slender waist of an undergrad anymore. My first fashion lesson in growing up.

Now that very same sarong plays a different role in my life: I never go camping without it. My husband and I go on weekend camping trips all over the country with our friends in other states, and I have found the sarong to be an invaluable tool when I’m “roughing it.” If it gets a little cold at night, I have the sarong to wrap around my head and shoulders like a scarf. If it gets surprisingly hot, I’m ready with the most comfortable skirt ever. In the sleeping bag, I use it as a sheet so I have temperature options other than unzipping the bag. If I have to, I have it as a towel for unexpected water events. And, I confess, I’ve actually had to use the sarong as a handkerchief on one or two occasions.

The sarong lives on in my life, just not in the way I had originally imagined. I swear it’s been the best eight dollar investment I’ve ever made in my wardrobe—it’s been in circulation in one form or another for more than ten years now. And I’ve learned, anyone really can wear a sarong, it’s just how you wear it that changes.

Toxoplasmosis strikes again!

I’ve got a friend who—I swear—is feeding my hypochondria for laughs. I’m not complaining, but I kid you not that she sends me every disgusting germ article the New York Times ever runs. I actually once wrote a lengthy blog post about the fear she instilled in me of infection by giant worms in your legs, but I decided it was a pretty lame topic considering my harping on about Toxoplasma gondii.

This time, my friend has followed up on the cat poop problem with a lively NYT story on my old buddy, Toxoplasmosis. Our favorite parasite is making news. Researchers have discovered more information about its habits, revealing that it is a genius of stealth. It masks itself inside healthy cells by popping in for a bit without scrambling up the cell enough to destroy it. Just uses it as a host, like when I go to visit my parents and I make them drive me all over town and buy me stuff. Same thing. The Toxoplasma gondii bugs use their favorite cells to go all over your body without being detected as a germ. That would be cool if it weren’t so gross.

Scientists also think that rats lose their innate fear of cats when infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Fascinating, but how will this help me? Will my dog quit chasing my cat? Can you imagine domestic harmony on the day a parasitic infection renders my dog feline oblivious? Oh what a glorious day that would be, however unlikely.

Media crisis averted

Guess what? I went on a vacation to TV Land, and all I got was this
lousy IQ! Seriously though, Matthew would say my "Media IQ" is at a
high point right now; I say I've gained eight pounds and I feel a lot
dumber. But that's OK! Because I'm here to tell you, you're not
missing anything on television.

You're thinking, "But duh Christine; it's summer repeats." Not for me
it's not. I didn't watch it the first time around, so this is all new
material to me. Still gotta tell ya, not that interesting.

The shining light in all this is that when I was sick recently I took
advantage of that time to do a lot more movie watching. Here's my list:

Moulin Rouge
Picture Bride
Crash
Pirates of the Caribbean
The Wedding Singer
The Mummy
Old School

In that order. I may have missed a few though. I can't be sure. It
was a lot of time on the couch, and after a while the butt grooves just
all blend together and you can't remember anymore.

Here's my mini review for each: Moulin Rouge, lots of stuff to look
at, great for no attention span. Picture Bride, not a lot to look at
but very simple, emotional story. There's a lot to connect with if
you've ever felt lost or rootless or if you've ever moved far from
home. Crash. Wow. Way better than I expected actually (yes this was
my first viewing, yes I am really late, yes I love Paul Haggis so I
have no excuse). Raw, abrasive, painful, but restorative. Pirates of
the Caribbean� Move over Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, you
might need to make room in the coveted favorite movie slot. Man I love
costumes and pirates. The Wedding Singer� Why didn't Drew Barrymore
marry Adam Sandler? She loves a funny co-star. The Mummy, I'm sorry,
but there's gotta be at least three slots in the favorite movies shelf.
A librarian-Egyptologist? Be still my beating heart! Old School is
actually better than you remember now that you've forgotten the
impossibly high expectations you developed for it while anticipating
the results of this awesome comic force.

Phew. See, movie critics have it easy! Just kidding. And sure, you
really didn't care about my review of those movies per se, but don't
you feel like you know me even better now? Scary, huh?

Seriously, any time you wanna throw down some Romy and Michele, you let
me know. The DVD doesn�t have a lot of special features, but I'll
totally give you my expert commentary the second time we watch it.
I'll point out all the awesome stuff you missed.

The pigeon problem

There are many mysteries hiding in a big metropolitan city like Chicago. One of my favorite vagaries to ponder: where do dead pigeons go?

Look around you in Chicago; there are pigeons everywhere. Our neighbors in lovely Logan Square have a pigeon roost problem. When I walk the dog, we hear, “Coo-coo. Coo-coo,” like turtledoves nestled in a tree, but really it’s pigeons in the eaves. When I sit to eat lunch outside my downtown office building, gangs of pigeons stalk me, waiting to see if I’ll drop a pretzel. Standing on an open-air train platform, I see pigeons standing on top of mounds of guano. They have dirt-streaked feathers, they’re missing parts of their feet, some are scrawny and starved, others are cocky and fat. Gross.

But what happens to dead pigeons?

When we first moved to Chicago in ’98, it perplexed me to no end to wonder where pigeon carcasses go. If there are so many swarms of live pigeons, statistically there are flocks of dead pigeons somewhere.

The first time I saw a dead pigeon, I was ecstatic. I was standing on the Belmont platform outside Milio’s hair salon, waiting for either a Brown Line or Red Line train to take me to the Fullerton stop. And, there, on the ledge that wraps around Milio’s building, there was a dead pigeon with his little stick legs popped up in the air. I felt my throat get tight I was so excited. I tensed my arms and balled my hands into fists to keep from clapping in glee. I grinned like the cat that swallowed the canary. My first dead pigeon sighting.

Since then, I haven’t wondered as intently about the dead pigeons, but I am very excited when I see a new carcass. Last night was a whammy.

First, Matthew parked his car with the front passenger wheel square on an already deceased pigeon. I laughed and pointed it out to Matthew. Second, after walking a few footsteps from our car, we saw another dead pigeon lying belly-up in the middle of the sidewalk. What are the odds? Third, Matthew asked, “Have I shown you my gruesome dead pigeon pictures?”

“Now you haven’t,” I said. I was a little nervous at the inclusion of the word “gruesome” in his characterization.

“Here, check it out.” He handed me his cell phone.

Sure enough, there were several pictures of different pigeon carcasses. But these were no ordinary dead birds. These were birds that were devoured by predatory falcons of some hawk variety. These were remains of birds that were probably professionally hunted and killed by a pigeon nuisance control falconer, or by highly adaptable urban hawks with a taste for an easy meal. All that was left of the carcasses Matthew showed me were the wings and connective tissue, looking like some surreal artistic statement on the inability of humans to fly.
Now, I love looking at a good carcass as much as the next person, but I think I’ve had enough dead pigeons now. I’m not so concerned about where all the dead pigeons go any more. They’re up in that dove cote in the sky, cooing their little hearts out.

Familiar glow of comfort

As much as I love to walk down the street and smile at the flowering trees and smell the beautiful blue sky, I simultaneously take my environment for granted and assume that it will always be the same for me here in Chicago. I had a shocking reminder this weekend that the world outside lovely Logan Square isn't the same as my little glass bubble of happiness.

I went to the suburbs Saturday night.

I know that you're remembering all the suburban people you've overheard saying, "I just hate driving in Chicago, I don�t feel safe." It's true that there are misguided souls out there that feel this way. I find the opposite to be true.

After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, civic planning straightened the city's haphazard streets and planned for future growth to be regular and ordered. Later generations decided to light up the Chicago night with thousands (millions?) of glowing orange streetlights. I bless those urban planners for creating a city that's easy to navigate at any time during the day or night.

There are those who think the sickly urban glare of Chicago is light pollution, but I think they haven't experienced the glory that is driving into the city at night from the scary, dark suburbs. Coming south down Asbury Avenue in Evanston, you can actually see the demarcation of orange glow that marks the beginning of Chicago city limits at Howard Street. I think that is a magical sight, as beautiful as the flowering catalpa trees in my neighborhood. I always point out that line in the night to my passengers, "That's where Chicago begins."

This past weekend, I went to an outdoor concert in the suburbs. It terrified me. I was surrounded by seas of white people dining al fresco by candelabra light, eating from gigantic wicker baskets stuffed with avocado heart salad and marinated chicken breast sandwiches. It made my heart yearn for simple Humboldt Park, where the Puerto Ricans set up grills and string up hammocks in between trees while blasting oompah ballads from their car stereos. I had no idea that that was my scene and sound of home, not the field of white people with black forest ham sandwiches and salads of fresh baby greens.

More terrifying than the racial singularity of the suburbs was the lack of lighting. On my way home from the concert, I had a difficult time finding my car in the parking lot because there simply weren�t enough lights. And then driving? Oh my goodness. Black streets punctuated by an occasional weak, white bulb. Bring me the glowing sulphurous daytime of Chicago's night streets, and I'll tell you how to use the major cross-streets to navigate home, no matter how lost you think you are. I never feel disoriented in Chicago's grid-like precision, but the suburbs� Charmingly winding streets make absolutely no sense to me, and I pray for some landmark to direct me back to I-94.

Dropping my friends off at their homes after the concert, I rolled down all my windows and smiled at the artificial orange glow. Home at last, I took wrong turns just for the fun of finding Chicago Avenue and making my way back to Logan Square from there.

Happy Feather's Day

Last week, I had the honor of visiting my physician. I love visiting my physician, but passing through the impediments leading to his office is like overcoming a series of obstacles for Fear Factor. Or at least it feels that way to a germaphobe.

His office is inside one of those downtown Chicago giant hospital complexes that houses 30-plus floors of clinically unwell people. Just getting through the oversized rotating doors challenges me. I choose the fastest revolving door that has the most momentum to try and duck through without touching any surfaces. I usually have to push the last few inches though, because everyone else is trying not to touch too.

Then there’s the elevator. Where else in the world do I ride shoulder-to-shoulder with people coughing like tuberculosis? Where else do I hope someone else is going to the same floor as me so I don’t have to touch one of the dirty floor buttons? Where else do I breathe recycled air exhaled by the person next to me who probably has the Chicago strain of a rare influenza infection?

The elevator turned fun that day. It came as quite a surprise. On the first floor, I had to reach over and touch the 18th floor button. What a let down. But on the second floor, we stopped to let in more people, and two war veterans stepped on. The one had a baseball cap stating his company and division, but I couldn’t see it clearly to read. What struck me—and everyone else in the elevator—so much about this man was that stuck into the mesh of his cap, he had two large feathers placed on either side of his head, like Mercury’s wings. I couldn’t help but smile.

“I like your hat,” I said. I tucked down my head and gestured at my forehead like adjusting the bill of a cap.

“Oh thanks,” he said smiling but casual.

Another woman wanted to get into the fun too, “What are the feathers for?”

“It’s Feather’s Day,” he grinned.

“Feather’s Day?” I asked.

“Yep.”

The other woman had the wherewithal to ask, “What’s Feather’s Day?”

“It’s to celebrate the one that didn’t get away.”

Sadly, the elevator opened at 18 at just that moment. I was sorely let down. I really wanted to hear the answer to that line of questioning.

What didn’t get away? The feather that stayed? The bird that stayed? A day that didn’t get away?

I’d like to think it was the day that didn’t get away. The opportunity that wasn’t missed. I’d also like to find Feather’s Day within me every day. I’d like to always celebrate what didn’t get away. I wonder if I need to stick feathers in my cap to remember though.

Number 51

You know how you're driving a new car and you reach that point where the odometer says "666"? Or when you're driving an old car and the odometer says "100,000"? You know it's coming, and you always mean to carry a camera to the car with you and take a picture for laughs later. But somehow you always forget, and the next thing you know the odometer says "672" and you totally missed your chance.

I just did that with the blog. I meant to point out, "Hey, check it out, this is post number 50! Whew!" But I totally forgot. In the spirit of mile "100,012," I give you ... blog post number 51. Thank you 51. You're an inspiration to us all to push harder for the next milestone. And hopefully to remember to take the camera to the car this time.

Hell-bent on time

I am hell-bent on destroying inanimate objects. Like a lightning-rod for my wrath, one class of things becomes the vent for my rage.

Take, for example, the lowly kitchen timer. An innocent household utensil, correct? But no! The kitchen timer is the bane of my existence. I curse you kitchen timer!

The first kitchen timer I surreptitiously destroyed was a classic blue turn-knob egg timer. I knocked it off of every surface it found itself upright on. On top of the kitchen counter--shazzam--on the floor! On top of the microwave, oh, you thought you could hide from me there--fwack--on the floor! Over by the sink? I don't think so--bleck--on the floor!

What I learned from my wanton annihilation of the egg timer is that the blue timer face is just a simple knob that you can pop back onto the mechanism�if you can find it. The knobby part will fly all over the place, but the timer mechanism is easy to find because of the built in bell. It makes a lot of noise when it hits the floor. After severe damage, the egg timer will often still work if you turn the knob past 10 and then set it to the time you need. But, after three years of my abuse and a few years of semi-retirement, even the bravest blue egg timer must give in.

"Where's the other timer?" Matthew asks.

"Mm. It's really dead now. It doesn't work at all. I think I threw it away, or it's on top of the fridge."

Which brings us to the digital kitchen timer. A state of the art timing machine from Williams-Sonoma, this early Christmas gift from a few years back has withstood significant trial at my hands. It has a magnetic back, so I keep it high up on the refrigerator, mwah-ha-hah, which means it has much farther to fall to hit the ground. There's a crack in the plastic face, and every once in a while it freaks out and the timer won't accept instructions about counting up or down, but for the most part, it has been a worthy adversary. Not so weak as the puny old timer, but not so simple to doctor after a calamity either.

If the battery cover flies off during a fall, I have to search all over for the triple-A battery and white plastic hinged cover. I'm surprised I still have all the pieces. Sometimes after a bad fall, it helps to remove the battery and let the digital mechanism reset itself. I usually let it rest for a while under the theory that it's had a bad day and deserves a break.

Kitchen timer incidents are so common in our household now that when I make a terrible clatter and Matthew asks, "What was that?" The simple answer "Egg timer" suffices.

Why do I want to destroy all the timers? I don't know. It's a good question though. When I get desperate and need to use the microwave as a timer, will I break it? Will I knock it off the counter every time I set "Timer-minute-plus thirty"� I hope not. I bet it would make a much bigger mess than the flying knob of the little blue egg timer that couldn't.

Sorry Christine Wy fan club

Dear fans, After the trip to Canada, I've been very busy with a class I'm taking for fun. It's final exams time and all our projects are due. And I was in Canada reading road signs! I promise I'll be back to the keyboard more regularly in no time. I'll be stunning you with my effervescent wit like no time has passed at all. I pinky swear it.

Hugs!

Christine Wy

The gentle maple leaf

I have discovered the perfect place for me. A place with European chocolate and base ten measuring systems. A place created by a legion of neurotic sign makers. Canada.

Canada is a neurotic country obsessed with safety. Cigarettes come with huge warnings that say "SMOKING KILLS" and a tiny logo says "marlboro." The amber alert sign over the highway says "High winds on Skyway. Drive carefully." Driving under the influence is a felony offense in Canada. Signs posted on the QEW say "Fatigue kills. Take a break."

I love it. Canada is watching out for you while you're there. I'm sure it's the country I am destined for because it's so darn uptight and polite. Surely I'll fit in there. Except for the accent. Gotta work on that. Eh?