Answers That Aren't 42 And Also A Thing About My Birthday

MIXED NEWS, EVERYONE! I have finished and turned in both of my papers (yay!) which I am pretty sure are both complete garbage (boo). But I'm back for now and I'm going to write some blog posts, starting with answering the questions you guys left for me in the comments:

exoticchemist said...

I'm curious as to what exactly triggers you to feel homesick. Is it just randomly wishing you were back in the US? Missing family and friends? Or is it specifically the differences between the US and UK? Maybe this is a dumb question...

It's not a dumb question, but it is a hard one to articulate. For one thing, I am now having a completely different cultural experience from the rest of my countrymen. While I don't miss snow (AT ALL), and I certainly don't want to be living in temperatures that can kill you in minutes, the whole polar vortex episode was hard on me because I felt...I don't know, left out. I still like to imagine that I am from Chicago and Chicago is my home and everyone at home was having this shitty but nevertheless collective experience and I wasn't there. And what made it worse was the UK was having a different collective experience with seriously damaging flooding seemingly everywhere, which is the experience I had, but it was the wrong one. And by the way, I'm crying right now. Sure I miss my family and my friends, but I can talk to them because the internet is magic. What I can't do is go back in time to when everyone was at the terrifying weather party and show up this time and be in on the jokes and know the stories.

Maya's comment was spot fucking on, and I really just wanted to post it and write "THIS ------>" next to it, but I'll elaborate instead. Maya said this: " I think, for me anyway, it was the fact that most things in the UK are so similar to North America that the differences, even the little ones, felt like a personal affront." I would say especially the little ones; the kind of things you never notice until they are different. In America, almost invariably, when you go inside a public building you just walk into it without breaking stride because the door is going to shut behind you. But in England where many of the buildings are older than my country, you walk into the building and you have to remember to shut the door behind you or it will just swing in the wind until the person at the desk gets up and closes it while glaring at you. There are no screens in the windows because there aren't that many bugs; you go shopping several times a week because the bread and the vegetables haven't been engineered to last for 2 months; the toilet doesn't flush the same way. I cannot fucking find wax paper at the store - grease proof baking paper is the closest thing. I know these things all sound dumb and petty because they are, but they add up into this sick feeling that this is not your home, no matter how much you want it to be.

Ok, that was sad. Let's do a different one:

Anonymous said...

44 degrees celcius here in Australia today, nature is bi-polar (and yeah that whole global warming thing). my question - did you ever choose a stripper name? or did I miss the big reveal in one of your posts?

Well anonymous, I'm pretty sure all of North America hates you right now, despite the fact that if it were 44 degrees there (111 F) they would be complaining that it was too hot. I did choose a stripper name and I did write a (half-assed) post about it. For the show I went with Phoebe Moon because I am a nerd. Now that I am in the UK however, I'll be using Poppy Cox because it's better and people get that joke here.

S said...

What have you learned about Brits/Britain by living here that you didn't learn by visiting?

Many many things, actually. I've learned that the words "noodle" and "pasta" are in no way interchangeable. In related news, I've learned that I'll need to bring a shit ton of Ramen back with me when I visit the states because the equivalents here are yucky in comparison. I've learned that people will fall over laughing if you pronounce squirrel as "skwerl". I've learned that driving students aren't allowed on the motorway, which means that when people get their first driving license, they have not learned to drive on one, which seems kind of dumb. Just last week I learned that when I say "look at those cans" no one realizes I'm talking about boobs. I've learned what stollen is, and that I hate it (raisins. why must everybody ruin perfectly good bakery with raisins? Knock it off already). I've learned that Christmas tree skirts aren't a thing here. I've learned that StereoNinja can't say prosciutto correctly. One thing that I already knew, but can't seem to get used to is being greeted with the phrase "You all right?". The American equivalent would be "How are you?". "You all right?" is what you would ask if someone just fell down the stairs or slipped on some black ice and landed on their head or just was walking around looking all sad. So whenever I'm asked that I immediately am confused about why they think I might not be all right. Gets me every time.

Thank you all for your questions. I like answering questions, so send more if you like and ask about whatever you want: stuff about me or why do Americans do that weird thing or where can I buy dildos or what is it about Patrick Stewart that makes him so sexy or Chris Christie, seriously, wtf is with that guy - whatever you want.

I'm not going to do a birthday wrap up post because it was overshadowed by paper writing and homesickness, but I did want to mention that StereoNinja bought me a telescope. HE BOUGHT ME A TELESCOPE. A FUCKING TELESCOPE. This feeling that I'm feeling is I think what it would be like for a normal person if their partner bought them a surprise Ferrari or a diamond as big as their hand. I HAVE A TELESCOPE YOU GUYS, and I live somewhere that I can actually use it. If it ever stops being shitty weather, that is.

Damn World Leaders, Get Off My Lawn

In case you are reading this and you are not from Chicago, this past weekend was the NATO summit and it was held right here in the second city for some reason (despite the fact that the G8 summit was like THE DAY BEFORE and half the people attending were already at Camp David for that and why couldn't you just have it there you dicks?). If you ARE from Chicago you are certain to already know this because OH MY FUCK what a shit farming nightmare.

There are two elements to hosting a NATO summit: visiting dignitaries and visiting protesters. The dignitaries fuck up traffic because god forbid they use the same roads as the lowly vassals who live here, so all the roads anywhere near where they currently are or might be going in the future are closed to the unwashed public. The protesters fuck up traffic by standing in the middle of the fucking street as close as they can get to where ever the dignitaries currently are or might be going in the future, or that they aren't going to at all but there was a rumor started that they might, or near any building that houses any company large enough that you've heard of them, or anywhere else they might suspect of quartering The Man.

Let me just stop for a second and remind everyone that I have no real political leanings whatsoever and whether you think NATO is good or bad does not interest me - I just wanted them to go somewhere fucking else. Similarly, I have no problem in principle with protesting about anything a group of people believes to be unjust - you are just in my fucking way. (Although when asked by a WGN reporter on the street what message they wanted to send to NATO, a disturbingly large proportion of them said that America doesn't spend enough money on education, which is true but leads me to believe they don't really understand what NATO does.)

Anyway, back to my entirely apolitical rant: NATO and angry college students fucked up my entire weekend. On Saturday I stayed in, being unwilling to deal with the mania any more than I had to, but even this couldn't be done undisturbed because every helicopter in Illinois was hovering over the city making it completely impossible to sleep or watch television. It was also the day I found out that Sunday was going to be completely ruined. There was SUPPOSED to be a nipple tassel making and twirling workshop at Studio L'Amour that I had been looking forward to for weeks. Alas, NATO struck again and I got an e-mail from Michelle herself that the workshop was cancelled because you couldn't get anywhere near the studio because the roads all around it were closed. Worse than that, it's been rescheduled for June 23, which means I can't go to it at all now because I'll be in Indianapolis that weekend for the 5K. I took my frustrations to Facebook, as one does, and wrote the following status: "And now NATO has fucked up my nipple tassel making class tomorrow and it's been rescheduled for the day I'll be getting chased by zombies. This weekend keeps getting worse!" Now, because I am me instead of someone with a life that remotely resembles some standard of normal, that first sentence seemed to me like a regular "People are fucking up my shit" rant. It wasn't until people started leaving comments that it dawned on me that making nipple tassels and running zombie races are not run of the mill every day things for most people, or that to have them ruined by NATO was at all unusual. Once I realized that, I was sorry that I didn't add "At least I don't have to leave trapeze class early now" because, you see, trapeze class slightly overlapped my nipple tassel class, a problem we've all run into at some point I'm sure.

It was rumored late in the previous week that the Occupy movement might try to shut down Boeing because they do evil things when they aren't busy making planes or something. Because our offices are in close proximity to Boeing, and also because Metra had restricted anyone from bring anything besides basically the clothes they were wearing (and even then you shouldn't be wearing too much clothes) on any trains, it was decided that we would close the office for the day and work from home. At that point, thinking I was smart, I decided that I was going to make a doctor's appointment for Monday afternoon and that way not have to schedule time off for it. One problem: my doctor is in a town that is 45 minutes to an hour away at the best of times. I decided to give that commute an hour and a half just in case. I got in my car and started driving sitting in traffic. It took me 45 minutes to go a distance that generally takes 10 at rush hour. Approaching the entrance to the highway I discovered why: the Kennedy was closed because OH MY GOD IMPORTANT PEOPLE ARE HEADED FOR THE AIRPORT AT VARIOUS TIMES FOR THE NEXT SIX HOURS. It wasn't hard to figure out that since it took me 45 minutes to travel 2 miles, it was unlikely I'd have time to cover the other 30 miles in time for my appointment, so I called (a terrifying experience all by itself!) to reschedule for a time when I AM supposed to be in the office, and then sat in traffic for ANOTHER 45 minutes to get back to where I started.

I cannot be happier right now that we lost our Olympic bid, or that the G8 moved to Camp David (it was originally supposed to be here too), and if we never host anything here ever again I will not be sad about it at all.

If we DO, well, I just fucking won't be here that weekend because FUCK. THAT.

Breaking News!

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested this morning on charges that he is a complete and utter douchebag. Disturbingly, this is not at all surprising. Hilariously, he was originally elected on a platform of reforming the corruptions of the previous Governor, George Ryan, who is currently serving 6 years after being convicted of being a total douchebag himself. I try very hard to keep politics out of this blog, but really this was too good to pass up. If I didn't laugh, I'd be crying.

This proves what I've been saying all along: Cabbage Patch Kids are evil.

Amberance: Conscientious Citizen

Tuesday night I headed out for my first experience as a voter in Illinois. Or rather, as a voter in Chicago as it was only a municipal election. I was extremely excited despite there being only four races on the ballot, one of which was a person running unopposed and another being the mayoral race, which is really just a formality here. Mayor Daley was re-elected overwhelmingly just as everyone expected. Chicagoans are funny like that. It's not that people are unaware that the administration is overwhelmingly corrupt, it's just that they don't really care. It's almost considered part of the city's cultural heritage: who doesn't think of Chicago when they think of Al Capone and the mafia and buying politicians? Secretly we like being notorious. As long as the streets are clean, and they are, Daley can be declared Mayor for life. Nevertheless, voting was the thing I was waiting for to make me feel like I can tell people I'm from here, so I was really psyched about it.

I got to the polling place which was a school near my house and went inside. I got passed from one table to another until we finally figured out that my ward's table wasn't in the building. "Go back out and on the other side of the pavement there is like a yellow field house, that's where you need to go." I thought this was weird because the school was pretty huge and the other two wards were only using one room. But whatever. I walked around the playground and saw the yellow field house. It was tucked way back into a corner where it could barely be seen from the street. It also looked like it could collapse on top of the people inside it at any second. In my head I started imagining a conspiracy theory, like Daley found out that a lot of people in my ward were planning to vote against him so they put the voting somewhere that was difficult to find and scary once you got there.

The inside was tiny and smelled like mildew and unwashed jock straps. The people inside, on the other hand were awesome. In all my life I have never seen such cheerful election volunteers. I half expected them to hand me a beer and tell me come hang out at the table. While I was voting it was discovered that almost everyone volunteering in that room was left handed, and they had noticed the left-handedness of me and the person who came in right after me while we were giving our signatures and this caused much rejoicing.

I finished voting in about 18 seconds, and took my ballot up the collection table. By the way, they have GIGANTIC ballots here. Seriously. Only four races on the ticket, but this sheet of paper must have been about 12" x 20". Al Gore would have a stroke if he ever saw them. This was the part I had been most looking forward to. Because all my life, I've been a voter in Ohio and in Ohio you get this awesome "I voted today!" sticker when you turn in your ballot. I was really excited about that sticker because I wanted to wear it to the bar tonight in order to make fun of my friend Teacher Charlie, who is best known for his never bothering to vote. I planned to taunt him with it. Only, when I turned my ballot in, there were no stickers. Instead they handed me a slip of paper that read "Ballot Receipt February 27, 2007. Municipal General Election." as if I had purchased something I might later want to return. Also the upper left-hand corner noted that this was Form 10, so apparently it's some kind of official document. All I know is that it has no adhesive that I can use to affix it to my shirt tonight. I was disappointed. I thought everyone handed out stickers when you voted. On occasion it's been the only reason I went - I have no idea who all those judges are!

So I'll have to make fun of Teacher Charlie without a cool prop, but what's that you ask? Where am I from? Why, I'm from Chicago Illinois!

Bunch of Savages In This Town

So I've recently found out that we are in the midst of National Blog Posting Month, or NaBloPoMo (I will not be calling it that because, dude. Come on.). I have, up til now, not participated in this, but I had a very good reason. I was busy. Busy dealing with the fallout of cockbreath assfaces who decided to do some vandalizin' last week.

I headed to my car on Wednesday morning, all ready to drive my lazy ass to the train station so I could go to work, only to find when I got to it that it seemed to be lacking something. Such as air in the tires. When last I'd left it, there had been a full supply of air in all the tires, so this seemed strange. It also went a long way to explaining the cop sitting in his car on the corner of my street, and the knocking on my door I had heard at 5:30 that morning, which I originally thought I dreamed, but was actually the cop. As it turns out, all four of my tires had been slashed, the driver's side had been horribly disfigured by someone's key, and six other cars suffered similar fates due to, I imagine, some damn kids "having fun".

AAA, bless them, came and took my car away on a flat bed truck so that I could be privileged to spend over $500 on some new ones, and later the insurance company took some pictures of the paint damage and estimated that that would cost something in excess of $1,100.

Operation Shrink the Fat Girl took a break for the day as I managed to consume 3 tacos, a small cheese sticks and small Hawaiian Punch from White Castle, a chocolate chocolate chip cookie and a small root beer courtesy of my friend Manny, a full slab of ribs, 4 slices of pizza, a coke, a small salad, two pieces of bread, an order of spaghetti and meatballs and three hard ciders all in the course of one afternoon.

Everyone except for the cop wanted to know who it was I had pissed off. I found this question curious. I don't have the kind of friends that I expect to slash my tires when I anger them. Who are these people hanging around with that this is their first thought?

At any rate that has been the focus of the last week, but I promise that from here on out there will be a blog post for each remaining day of National Blog Posting Month, even if it's crap.

Ill-annoying

Honestly people, all I wanted to do was officially become an Illlinoisian. Illinoiser? Illinoisan? Whatever. I wanted to officially be from Illinois. That is, get Illinois plates for Alistair and an Illinois driver’s license for me. Well, let me tell you something kids: you better fucking be from here in the first place because they don't take kindly to foreigners in these parts.

Since I have a social phobia regarding any situation I haven't previously encountered involving other people, I checked first with my good friends out at the Liz to get the low down on what to expect. Their utter amusement did nothing to allay my fears.

"Do you have your old registration and proof of insurance? Your old driver's license and some proof of residency, like a utility bill? You should have everything you need then. And don't worry, if you don't, they're very kind and understanding," said Klug.

"Oh, and by the way, don't tell them you've lived here an entire year," JoE advised. "You're supposed to get an Illinois license within 10 days of moving here. Although, you can tell them how long you've really been here if you want. I’m sure they'll be very kind and understanding."

"Don't worry about where you need to go or anything," Fish assured me. "There's a guard at the door now. You tell him what you need to do, and he'll tell you what line to get in. He's very kind and understanding."

I suspected they were mocking me.

The guy at the door was a little Mexican guy in a very official looking outfit that implied if I said anything stupid, he had the authority to shoot me. He looked neither kind nor understanding, and I would come to find out that my first impression was correct. But he did know where to send me. Driver's license first. Line 2.

Line 2 was very short, although the area just beyond Line 2 looked like Ellis Island circa 1907. To get an Illinois license you need the following items: your old out of state license, proof of birth, proof of Social Security number, and proof of residency. I had on me the following items: my Ohio driver's license (with my Social Security number included), my birth certificate, and a bill from People's Energy.

"Where's your Social Security card?" asked the Line 2 attendant.

"I don't have it."

"Well, you need proof of your Social Security number to get an Illinois license, so you won't be able to get that today."

"Um, but it's printed right there on my Ohio license," I said. Because it seemed to me that if my Social Security number was ON MY OLD LICENSE that it should qualify as "proof" that this was MY Social Security number. Putting your SS# on your license is optional in Ohio, but as far as I know, you don't have the option of putting just anyone's number on there. It has to actually be yours.

"That's not on the document list," he said, handing me a sheet of paper and circling Section C, "Proof of Social Security". Sure enough the items on the list included a U.S. Military ID, a State of Illinois ID card, a letter from the Social Security people officially stating your SS#, or your Social Security card. Out of state driver's license, whether you number was printed right on it or not, was not included. "Come back with your Social Security card. Also you'll have to take a written exam and a vision test." He shoved all the paperwork back at me, indicating that I was dismissed.

"Can I still get plates though?" I asked him. This was the more pressing issue, as my driver's license won't expire until next year, but my Ohio tags expired last week. He said I could, and also permitted me to just unhook the rope and get in Line 1.

Now I was in line 1, and for this exercise I had ready: my Ohio registration, my loan agreement, and my insurance card. I would not need any of these immediately. The woman behind the counter began rapid firing her automated list of questions at me and pulling out forms as I answered them. Because I bought the car outside of Illinois, new, from a dealer, still owed money on it, and used it outside of Illinois for a specified period of time, I was handed a stack of approximately 87 forms to fill out before I could receive my two metal rectangles indicating that my car lives here. I headed off to the long table in order to accomplish this.

As I was working, a surly employee made his way down the table peering over everyone's shoulder, deeming each of us stupid in turn, and sending us off to the auditors for "help" filling out our small forest's worth of forms. I was doing pretty well, I thought, but not well enough for the Form Enforcer. "Ma'am," he said in an exasperated tone as if I was just too dumb to understand (though I hadn't said anything to him at this point), "you need to go over to the Auditors and have them help you fill this out right now. We'd like to get out of here some time today." I'd been standing there for maybe three minutes when he said this and was already halfway done, due to my diligence with Having Things Ready. But this wasn't good enough, so I headed over to the Dummy line.

Turns out I belonged in the Dummy line. I handed all my documents and papers to the older gentleman assisting me, and of course the first thing he asks me for is the exact mileage on my car. That particular nugget being the one piece of information I did not have. I told him this and he looked around tiredly. "Doesn't look like the doors are locked yet," he said. "Better go out and get the mileage off your car." So chastened, I ran out to my car and diligently wrote down "14,242" on my forms before heading back inside.

I walked in and immediately headed back to the Auditor lime. But before I could take three steps the little Mexican man (hereafter, "the Mexi-nazi") stopped me with an authoritative bark. "Ma'am," he said sharply, "what's your business here?"

"Um, I was just here, remember? I need to get plates? I just had to get something out of my car."

"Line 1," said the Mexi-nazi coldly.

I thanked him stupidly, then ignored him and went straight back to the Auditors. At least he didn't shoot me.

I got a different auditor this time. She took my registration and loan agreement away and made copies of them (no one ever asked me for proof of insurance. WTF?), stapled them to my paperwork, signed and stamped a dozen things, and sent me off to stand in another line so I could give them my money. I stood in the line and glanced around, as you do. And in so glancing, I noticed a sign on the wall. "We accept, cash, personal check, money order, and Discover Card."

So rarely have I been in a place that accepts Discover but not Mastercard or Visa that I had to read it twice. And instantly I wished I had read it before going to take down my mileage, because in my purse I had no cash, no money order, and no Discover card (since I carry Mastercard like a normal person). I did have a checkbook....in my car. The Form Enforcer was nearby, so I went to him and timidly said, "Um, can I please run out to my car? I left my checkbook there by accident." He approved my trip and I went out to the car a second time.

I was gone, oh, 45 seconds, tops. When I got back, I discovered the front door was locked. So I did what any other rational adult who had been granted permission to get her checkbook from her car would do: I went in through the exit door.

A small but strong hand gripped my shoulder as I stepped inside, and I turned around and came face to face with the Mexi-nazi. "You can't come in Ma'am," he announced.

I heard a whiney little kid speaking and realized it was me. "But I was just here. The man told me I could go out and get my checkbook." I looked around for the Form Enforcer only to discover that he'd vanished into the ether. Instead I sheepishly held out my finished paperwork.

Mexi-nazi tightened his grip on my arm and shook his head at me. "You can't come in. We're closed." He steered me back toward the doors. It was clear that I would not be granted the privilege of giving the state of Illinois $143 that day.

Defeated, I let myself be escorted off the premises without obtaining an Illinois driver’s license or Illinois plates. When I got to my car, I immediately called Fish to complain. When he answered I announced I was moving back to Ohio because everyone here was mean and then promptly burst into tears.

Fish was very kind and understanding.