There was a baseball event in Chicago last night, and I was happy to attend because lately I have not dedicated enough time to being around others. I have been working longer hours than usual, and the past six months have been an indistinguishable whirl of airport codes, hotel robes, and room service. There’s not a single thing I would trade about it.

When I’m home, which isn’t often anymore, everything is regimented. Get to the gym, then to the office by 7am. Push through meetings, drink six cups of coffee, take conference calls on lunch breaks, and maybe sneak a radio hit with the office door closed and hope that no one knocks. After work, I take the dog for a run, cook dinner for one with a baseball game on the radio. By time I hit the sofa, there’s a 50-50 chance I’ll be asleep before the third inning of a west coast game. Some nights, I bypass the sofa altogether and head straight to the bed.

In your late 20s, you lose a lot of friends, and the past two years have been an Agatha Christie novel of disappearance and inevitabilities. Some get married and have kids. Others couple up with partners who dislike you and drift away slowly before changing their phone numbers. They may not feel like it, but these people are still your friends in the sense that they would show up at a once a year cookout (as long as their children don’t have dance recitals or soccer games) and would likely attend your funeral, but they are no longer the friends that go to baseball games and eat sliders as the sun rises over Diner Grill after a night of drinking.

They are not available for impromptu brunches or to take your plus-one for a concert, so, please kindly stop calling. Your virtual Rolodex has recedes… and then there were none.

But unlike the disappearing friends of your early 20s, who you have to worry are on a bender or got evicted or have been arrested, these people disappear because they are successful. You can’t even get mad at them, because you’ve changed and you’re successful, too. It’s not simple to pinpoint at what moment you all transitioned from ill-informed and fungible to professional and static, but subtlety your late-night drunk fits turn into early-morning brunches, your American Apparel T-shirts are ditched for Dior and instead of hand-me-downs, you’ve got Prada. No one stresses about splitting the check or who ordered alcohol. Someone just throws in their credit card and you go your separate ways for Bikram yoga or a pedicure instead of trawling discount stores for groceries and pregnancy tests. It’s inevitable that some get left behind. If you didn’t have the friend who constantly needed a sofa to crash on or the train-wrecked on Facebook once a week about their unemployment and venereal diseases, how would you feel good about yourself?

But regardless of path, we’re all adults here. Happiness and success come in multiple metrics. For some, it’s marriage, children, and owning a home, or as I like to call it, the path of least resistance. That’s not to sleight good relationships; for those, I’m grateful, but so many are tragic and maintained out of convenience instead of lust, adoration, and respect. You combine your lives by comparing who has a nicer toaster, duvet cover, and television and then you split the bills or join your bank accounts. And after a brief period, you birth something that moves, kicks, thinks, and eventually articulates that serves as a distraction from the doldrums of life not just internally, but to onlookers as well. You’re diversified in a way that provides leniency when something does go wrong. If you’re fired? At least you have love. And if your partner leaves you? Well, bury yourself in work and Little League coaching. The chances of everything being taken away at once are slim, after all.

I concede there are many ways to feel fulfilled and complete, but that’s a progressive view that isn’t supported by all. For some, the moral compass of society and “what is good” and “what is normal” might have been hammered harder. As such, there are people who see three pillars—marriage, career, and children—as zero-sum. If you don’t have all three, you’re deficient. If you’re not actively seeking all three, there’s something wrong with you. And occasionally, you encounter these people in person, and they project their biggest fears onto every single person they find.

Pardon me, correction: They project the fears of failure and deficiency onto every single woman they meet.

At the baseball event last night, I wanted to catch up with my peers—other baseball writers and fans of the game. And for the most part, that’s what happened. They drank beer, and I had a bourbon. We traded clubhouse tales, trade rumors, fantasy baseball strategies, and our thoughts on the shift. We quizzed each other on trivia (I couldn’t remember much about the 2005 NL MVP vote, but did alright on the rest). Being the only woman in the crowd, I was even applauded for my ability to abandon a conversation quickly or unnoticed, the best fight-or-flight skulking skills that women deploy when cornered by an unsavory male at the bar on display.

When it was time to go, I made my rounds, saying goodnight to the host and to old and new friends. In my final goodbye, I interrupted a friend in conversation with a stranger, and since it is a pet peeve of mine in social settings that people do not introduce themselves immediately, particularly in small groups, I extended my hand and said, “Hi, sorry for interrupting, I’m Cee, and I’m going home,” and the bearded man on the receiving end extended his own hand and said, “Oh yes, I know who you are.”

He didn’t tell me his name, but continued. “Cee, I wanted to tell you… you’re very beautiful. And you’re intelligent. I know that life is hard on you because you’re single, but I want you to know that you’re not going to die alone.”

Stunned, I continued to shake his hand for longer than appropriate before recoiling. “Oh, wow! We’re going straight there, huh?” Trying to ease the awkwardness and the tension in my neck, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Did my mom send you here?”

He continued for too many minutes, digging the hole deeper. He told me he was married and that he wasn’t hitting on me, but wanted me to know that I was desirable, and, that someday I would be loved and married.

He just knew it, he said.

It felt shameful, like I was eavesdropping on a conversation he meant to have about me, not to me. I was in a rush to avoid a parking ticket, but suddenly I was on trial for rushing home to an empty apartment. He knew from reading my work that I had been single for a long time, and he brought up something I mentioned on social media six months ago—a stranger helped me get my car out of the snow during the polar vortex—as an example of why he felt bad for me. I stood frozen as he took pains to tell me about the joys of having children and how I wasn’t to worry, because I was a viable candidate for mating, breeding, and traditional conformity. It was unsolicited, it was unwarranted. It was projecting at its worst and a back-handed compliment to everything I have accomplished.

I left with a smile on my face, not out of happiness or misplaced sense of politeness, but because I was so taken aback by the brazen judgment of someone I had just met. I called a friend to tell him what had happened and to let him know the great news about my future as predicted by a random judgmental prick who had saved me from singledom in a way that felt oddly familiar to when my Pentecostal coworkers at one of my first job who would pull me aside just to let me know that they were praying for my salvation. My friend sang You’ll Never Walk Alone as I drove to my apartment with tears of laughter in my eyes.

I thought about this stranger who thought he was doing me a favor by reassuring me that my life would not always be off-track while I brushed my teeth. I thought about it in line for coffee this morning and again during a rather dull conference call. I wondered not only about what he said, but also what he meant, and perhaps how many other people I have met look at me with those same eyes of sadness for the fact that I’m not married. I fretted about this perception of Cee Angi, lonely baseball writer and sad single sap who has nothing but a spaniel and Baseball-Reference to fulfill her until Prince Charming comes alone. I abhorred his insinuation that I was at this baseball event to meet a man who could stifle the loneliness and fill me with happiness, particularly since I was there for the drinks and company, not attention.

In the end, however, I felt worse for him than I did for myself, but I also feel as though it’s our duty to control our own messages and that if someone doesn’t understand where it is from which we come, then you have to speak up rather than giving someone the license to disrespect you or treat you inappropriately.

As such, let’s start over.

“Hi, sorry to interrupt, I’m Cee, and I’m going home. But before I do, I’m 29 and I live in Chicago with my dog, Lola. I work in Project Management and I’m a freelance baseball writer, and I’ve never had to borrow money from my parents nor have I felt the urge to get coupled up because I can’t pay my own rent. I am a workaholic and I’ve put my careers first because they are of utmost importance to me. Some measure their success in love in marriage and others, myself included, measure it in in disposable income and the ability to hop on an airplane at a moments’ notice.

Further, some of us are intentionally single. I could be in a relationship if I wanted to be, but I haven’t found anyone worth tolerating, worth fighting for, or worth the compromise. I’m a fan of silence and having the entire bed to myself. When I cook dinner and have a bottle of wine on a Friday night instead of spending it with a man, I never stop and think, ‘Oh, pity me that no one will buy me dinner!’ I think, ‘This week has been exhausting, I can’t wait to take my pants off and sit on my oversized chaise and watch baseball games and Netflix.’

There are moments when the societal pressures of conformity creep in and I wonder if I’ve made the best decisions for long-term happiness, but they are fleeting because I remember that life is simpler and often happier when you’re the center of your own attention.

I am not some hopeless case that deserves pity and judgment until I decide to let someone move in with me. If anything, I, like all strong single women, should be applauded for navigating tough periods in life without the traditional societal safety nets so many have become reliant on.

Now, can you tell me the top five candidates for the 2005 NL MVP?”

I was asked to answer the question, “What Inspires You?” Here’s the Result:

 

If you ask my parents to describe me as a child, their response would be a combination of praise, heavy sighs, and nervous laughter.

Let me preface all of this by saying that I have two wonderful parents, high-school sweethearts who believed that hard-work, dedication, humility, and accountability were the responses to any question. Parenting doesn’t come with a manual, so they overcompensated: No matter the question, they stuck to those four answers.

Essentially, I was raised by a Magic 8-Ball.

That approach worked well with my sister. She got good grades and took life at face value, never inquisitive enough to ask a question that the Magic 8-Ball couldn’t handle. Me on the other hand, I constantly fired up questions—not just hypotheticals, real predicaments that needed solving—only to find that no matter how violently I shook it, I got the same answer: Reply Hazy, Try Again Later.

Don’t jump to any conclusions here, I wasn’t a bad kid. I was simply an artist among accountants, a non-conformist that didn’t see boundaries (or understand social constructs like why people have to wear shoes in a restaurant which, admittedly, as an adult, seems obvious now), a precocious kid that was often labeled as untenable just because I wanted to read books, paint, sing, screech, fall out of trees, and push the limits of patience. It was not a scoff at pedantry; living was just more fun when I had cookie dough for dinner and finger painted on the dog.

I contend to this day that I was misunderstood. My mother wonders if she failed me. I know this, because she still asks.
When the time came, no one was surprised when I said I didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to be a painter. I wanted to take pictures; I wanted to write. In negotiations, I tried to reach the middle ground: I’d go to culinary school and open a bakery which seemed responsible enough, even though from the moment the words left my mouth I knew that I would never open La Cee Boulangerie because there’s no way I’d go to work at 4am every day.

Structure didn’t own me; creativity did.

Paths change and people mature. I finished college, even went back for graduate school (and got degrees in business, not abstract puppetry). I grew in new mediums: spreadsheets instead of pastels, high-rises instead of jazz taps. Some see that sort of shift as a dismissal of a dream outright, but that’s shortsighted.

Once you accept who you are—how your mind works, what excites it, and how to challenge it–you can be successful at virtually anything.

Life is hard for the intellectually stagnant, for those who sit idly without curiosities. Inspiration comes from improvising—after all, a Magic 8-Ball may not have an answer.

I’m writing this from bed, which only seems fitting considering I’ve spent the majority of my free time between these sheets since November, or maybe even as early as October if I’m being really honest. (I’ve washed them a few times). I should be asleep, not because it’s that late, but because it’s what I’ve done the past handful of months to avoid my keyboard and my feelings, which most of the time are one in the same.

“I enjoy being alone.” That’s a phrase I’ve used so many times that I’ve become desensitized to the meaning of each of those words individually and when smushed together. The fact is, I can’t tell you the last time I enjoyed anything. And as for the being alone part, it’s something that I firmly believe in principle is important to me, but it’s become a defense mechanism from a single girl who hasn’t been given much of a choice but to utter that phrase because, enjoy it or not, it’s happened.

My 29^th birthday was last month. I spent the week dreading that it was approaching, which is different from my usual month-long declaration of, “it’s my birthday month!” and “let’s do birthday shots!” that start the week after Christmas and last until Valentine’s Day. It was my golden birthday, a Wednesday, and I told my mother if she sent anything to my office that I would never speak to her again. I warned a coworker, the only who knew it was my birthday, that if she put any confetti in my office that I would never forgive her. Extreme? Perhaps, but the thought of being subjected to the false joy and celebration from strangers felt like a punishment.

I often take kindness as a pity party, which is my cross to bear, not the people who make an effort. There’s a part, albeit small, of my brain that is complicated, petulant, and on a loop repeating, “You don’t deserve nice things, you don’t deserve nice things, none of this kindness is real,” and while most days I can tell it that it’s full of shit, on important days it’s the only thing I hear. It’s a ghost that chimes in different voices. Sometimes it sounds like the children who bullied me in elementary school. Others it sounds the guy in college who broke up with me because he didn’t like my new haircut. Most of the time, it’s my own voice.

I tried to buy my way out of sadness. Someone once told me that no one will ever treat you as well as you treat yourself, which is true, but it has limits. Since I spend 12 hours a day in an environment with people who are wealthy and flashy, I got the Michael Kors handbag and Marc Jacobs watch I’ve been coveting. The watch was delivered on my birthday; Amazon sent me a text to let me know it was waiting at the front door. When I got home there was a remnant of an Amazon Prime shipping box and a note from my neighbor that read, “I think someone stole your package. I hope it wasn’t important. -2B.”

I stopped drinking on Christmas. I took my last sips of bourbon sitting in a hotel room with my family. We were supposed to be at my parent’s house, but the power went out and the best we could do was to pack the holiday feast into paper boxes and transport them to a Residence Inn where I’d be shacking up with a six-month-old, who was teething yet still happier than I was. That night I decided I’d see how long I could go without alcohol, and I’ve had only two drinks since. I also changed my eating habits. I cut out carbs, sugars, processed foods, chocolate, and I’ve spent months not dieting as much as seeing how far I can push myself before I start to feel something, start to miss something. I keep getting complimented for my willpower, but that’s not really it—it’s been easy because my mind has been too preoccupied to think beyond the banana and oatmeal that I keep in my desk to eat every morning.

I am working too much. Everyone mistakes that as dedication and commitment, but it’s really the one thing I do to prevent myself from sleeping 14 hours a day. Without the office, the travel, and the freelancing, I’d simply sit here and think, and who has time to think when there’s a million favors and extra projects that people will pay you for, just to keep your hands busy on something else?

I’ve contemplated changing my phone number several times recently not because it’s ringing too much, but because it never rings and I could accept that easier if I felt that people just didn’t know how to reach me. My text messages have dropped to around 200 per month, my g-chat lifeline diminished to just a handful, and the call I got tonight was the first in over 20 days that has been received (or sent, for that matter) that wasn’t from a telemarketer or a university asking for a donation.

There was a promise I made to myself when the offseason started: Do not park yourself in front of the television. I had two shows I wanted to catch up on, but I promised myself I’d read more and write more, and so I did. My bedside tables have nice lamps now, and they are festooned with magazines, novels, textbooks, and moleskines. Of all of the things I’ve done since October, this is the only one I’d mention proudly if asked. The rest of it, I’ve been busy lying about.

It’s important to put on airs not only when it comes to success, but also about self-possession. No one likes a train wreck, and, for if you’re the wreck yourself, the last thing you want is a pity party on days that are not your birthday. I live hours from my family, and since my closest of friends have moved on to their spouses and rites of passages, the only things they know are the things that I tell them. I’ve become the master of crafting press releases for talking about my day, and if anyone notices even a tinge of sadness in my voice, I just say “I’m tired and wish you were here.”

I remember the first time I told my mother I thought I was suffering from depression. Despite the fact that my unhappiness and reckless behavior were giant elephants in the family’s living room for years at that point, I’ll never forget the look of sheer terror and pity in her eyes. In that instant I resolved to never let that happen again, that I would shield people from truly grasping my daily struggles. But at some point, you reach a peak in personal development in which you realize there is no shame in this and that you can no longer sit in solitude with your suffering. What is life, if not an occasion to party pitifully with others?

So, I will tell you now, I am depressed. I am a depressed person. I’m fortunate that depression is the worst of it, but that doesn’t make it easier. I’m not too busy to come to dinner, I’m too withdrawn to put forth the energy for it. Depression has turned me into a bad friend, the type who gets angry that you don’t notice that I’m not around, yet refuses to come around if you do. Depression has forced me to fall asleep at 6pm to avoid the awkwardness of another free night, and if it’s the weekend, it has forced me to walk and feed the dog, only to take another sleeping pill just so I can spend a few more hours in hiding. Depression has forced me to sit at traffic lights with tears streaming down my faces as strangers walk inches from the driver’s side, and it’s forced me to excuse myself from my favorite coffee shop after spontaneously combusting in tears. It has caused me to cancel plans, block phone numbers, shout expletives, and it’s taken away my kindness, patience, and spunk and replaced it with impatience and hopelessness.

My fingers are crossed that this is just the harshest case of seasonal-affective disorder I’ve had since I willingly became a transplanted Southern in the frozen tundra of Chicago. Most days I think I would just feel better if I could get an hour-long walk with my dog in temperatures above freezing, but we haven’t seen those days in awhile. In the meantime, I’m learning my triggers and trying to tread water instead of losing my best friends, my family, and my self-worth to depression’s main goal of self-sabotage.

Most days aren’t easy, but most days aren’t easy for anyone. While I’ll ask for your patience, your forgiveness, and your compassion, the biggest thing to ask of anyone is simple: If you see something, say something. I realized that today as I sat in my warm car, flustered after a meeting, and saw a homeless man, roughly my age, standing on an off ramp on Lakeshore Drive. His sign said, “Homeless, Hungry, Freezing,” and while I couldn’t stop to learn his situation, I could extend my arm out of the car window and pass him $20 as I made the turn back to the office.

We never know someone’s struggling until they tell us, though. So here goes: Depressed, Tired, but hopeful that it’s going to get better.

In honor of my fifth year anniversary in Chicago, I’m taking time to reflect on all of the things I’ve learned in my years here. The first part of the series is here. 

Every new restaurant cannot be the best restaurant ever

Chicago is a food city. It’s also a sports city, the Windy City, and the City of Big Shoulders, but first and foremost, it is a food city. As such, there are new restaurants opening constantly, and anyone with an investor or a trust fund can try their hand at haute cuisine, food trucks, or even open a pretentious little vault that sells doughnuts for the price of ribeyes to people crazy enough to wait in absurd lines for fried dough. Most people in Chicago become foodies by proxy, and if the restaurant name is trendy enough or if it’s situated on a rough corner in a slowly gentrifying neighborhood, it might be billed as “the best restaurant ever” by the people who go there.

Perhaps the City of Big Shoulders is also the City of Gross Hyperbole, but I’ve heard the phrase “best ever” uttered so many times that it doesn’t even register. The true Chicago boulevardier knows he or she has to supply a more thoughtful portrait. If you’re the first person in your group to eat at a new restaurant, it’s your job to be an apostle, spreading the gospel of truffle fries and Scotch eggs to anyone who will listen. When among your peers, you should be armed with strong opinions about the food, and how the food ranks from best restaurant to (former) best restaurant. You also have to know the lineage—Kuma’s had the best burger ever, but then they branched into Lakeview which made it prosaic, and thereby were dethroned by Au Cheval or Three Aces. They too will be ousted by something that opens in the next six months.

Then there are all of the novelty food shops that pop up that you have to feign interest in—shops that make poutine, bars that specialize in brown liquor, hot dog shops, craft tacos, and places that put bacon in everything. Sure enough, as soon as someone says that BlackWoodBushHouse has the BEST biscuits and gravy in the city, your next brunch invitation will take you there. And, of course, if the food is disappointing your host will always take refuge in the bandwagon-jumpers favorite excuse, “Oh, it was much better the first time we came.”

There are good restaurants everywhere in this city. There are restaurants where you can spend your entire paycheck to literally eat the menu because the molecular gastronomy movement allows for it (and it tastes, as you’d expect, terrible) and there are taquerias with $2 tacos better than the ones you’d spend twice as much for at Big Star.  The secret is that a restaurant’s trendiness is seldom synonymous with its level of quality. The wise diner can ignore the hype in favor of those establishments whose qualities suit their individual temperaments. You don’t have to wait in line two hours of a hot dog, unless of course you want to. For me, the lists of bests include anywhere that you a) don’t have to wait in line b) don’t have to listen to the people next to you discuss the litany of problems with their vintage fixed gear and c) allow you to bring your own beer.

Don’t let anyone convince you that you’re less of a Chicagoan for not having tried every new restaurant in the week that it opens. Perhaps in certain circles there are points to be won for knowing someone who can snag you tickets to NEXT or a mixologist who gives you an exclusively heavy pour. What’s really unfortunate are the times that I’ve been surrounded by people simultaneously declaring something “the best” and being nonplussed that you’ve never heard of it, like we’re at Pitchfork talking about indie bands we love.

At best, you’re gullible. At worst, you’re broke.

Find Your Bar, Immediately.

I found my bar after being in the city for less than a month.  On that night, I headed back to the high-rise where my old boots had taken on water, this time in new heels and a suit for grad school orientation. I hated wearing suits, especially the jacket, but the invitation implored us to “dress to impress” which was synonymous for me with “dress in something excruciatingly uncomfortable, lest you be judged.” Even though I started overdressed, I felt the illusion of sophistication ripping away like I had lost a hand of strip poker every time I met a classmate who had roman numerals at the end of their name.

I still had more of a Kentucky twang at that point, which was at times a point of pride, but in rooms of young aristocrats, a point of insecurity. I sat alone in the corner, sipping the juice that I was handed when I walked in, and tapped my pencil on my notebook. I didn’t plan to take any notes, but it at least kept my hands busy, and if anyone made eye contact, I could fly open the cover and bury my nose in it.

The Dean of the University gave a speech, and while she spoke I looked through the “Welcome to Grad School, Don’t Fuck Up” pamphlet we were handed at the same time as the squeezed mystery berries in a Dixie cup. On the inside of the front cover was a letter from the Dean which seemed redundant since she was speaking from behind a podium inches in front of me, but it contained a biography that told me we did our undergrad at the same university. I hadn’t met anyone from Kentucky since relocating, but more importantly, it gave me a talking point with which to introduce myself. It would also prevent me from saying something stupidly awkward like “I EXCITED I AM SCHOOL GRADUATE EDUCATION” which is always the risk when you ask a wallflower to speak to a powerhouse.

When she approached, I shook her hand and said that we attended the same university. While that reference alone would have sufficed, my nerves forced me to throw in a “Go Cards” with the little L hand gesture afterwards (which is an event I’ve often replayed in my head as one of the most embarrassing things I’ve willingly done). Trent Thomas Edwards Rubenstein the Fourth, or whatever his name was, waited with growing jealousy as the dean and I talked about Louisville the city and Louisville the University. She then told me that she was leaving to go to a bar on the Northside and that if I hurried I could meet her and the alumni group to watch the remainder of the basketball game. With the Dean’s blessing, I blew off the rest of orientation and took the train to the bar, limping blocks in my boxy suit and itchy pantyhose. It was the first and only time I’ve chosen to watch a sporting event in stilettos. I was too shy to do much beyond say hello to the dean and her group, but I took a seat at the bar, which was tended by the owner. He’s no mixologist, but generous in pours and conversations.

In the months that followed, I wandered in there frequently enough that they learned my name, my drink, and even which sporting event I’d want to watch even before I could ask. It’s important to have a relationship with a bar as they seem to last longer than ones with people in this city. It’s nice to know there’s a place that can make you dinner, pour you a drink, and provide friendly conversation when being new can make you sometimes struggle to find it elsewhere.

Anniversaries for longevity have been elusive milestones in my life. Growing up, the longest I lived anywhere was two years. I stayed in my college town for six years, not because it took me that long to get two  degrees, but because I was so blinded by love that it took me a couple of years to figure out that the one thing I really wanted was to be left alone. I haven’t held a job, other than freelancing, for longer than two years. My aforementioned relationship was my longest, and it lasted just four years before ending with a lot of screaming and a partially-shattered sense of self-worth.

And when it was over, I landed in Chicago — five years ago today.

Conventional wisdom says that your early twenties are supposed to be the “best years of your life” and I guess, for me, that was no exception. I woke up two hours before my alarm, something that would have never happened in my first two years here, and watched the snowflakes dance along the Christmas lights hanging across the horseshoe curved courtyard.  It hit me that I’m just 365 days away from having more of an identity as a Chicagoan than a Kentuckian, if time were the only measure.

In celebration of my fifth anniversary, here’s part one of (at least) a two-part series of things I’ve learned from my first five years in Chicago.

Invest in good winter gear

When I arrived in Chicago, there was snow on the ground. That’s not usual for November-March, but on that particular morning in January there was just enough on the ground to argue that better footwear would be needed. My Chucks were reduced to squishy-soled water weights strapped onto my feet with fraying laces. As I carried my redneck suitcases (trash bags) full of clothes into my first city apartment my single agenda items– figure out how to get the sofa inside — was soon joined by a second: find better shoes.

The sofa was solved by using a rope to hoist it onto the balcony. I was proud of the new place, a two-bedroom that my parents were going to help me pay for until I found a roommate. I found it on my own, and it wasn’t until I moved in that I realized I committed a huge Chicago faux pas: I was renting west of Western Avenue. Now that gentrification has really picked up that carries less of a stigma, but I spent the first six months of my Chicago tenure convinced that the Norman Rockwell façade of the Northwest corner of Lincoln Square was hiding something more dangerous. Turns out, there’s just a caste system involving Chicago addresses.

In my first week in Chicago, I clocked nearly twenty miles of walking, all in boat shoes (without socks) and tennis shoes (also without socks). My feet were wet and cold, and on the first day of heavy snow and subsequent days of -30 degree weather, I caved to the importance of winter footwear. Money was something I didn’t have, so I got a pair of knock-off UGGs from the clearance rack at Macy’s. They lasted only a couple of weeks, until the snow started to melt; the faux-suede took on water like the Titanic and I sloshed around as if wearing a pair of icebergs.

One of the first things I had to do prior to starting grad school was meet a mentor for drinks at a gastro pub situated at street level of the 23-floor high-rise in which I was set to start classes at the end of the month. I still felt counterfeit when walking into the grown-up establishments catering to  cosmopolitan adults, places that often involved revolving doors and reservations, and if my own insecurities weren’t enough of a burden, as soon as I stepped on the rug my footsteps were met by gasps from the hostess, an early 20’s female, a thin stick of perfection with an orange-tinted face draped in long blonde waves (I’ll later learn we call those Trixies here), who looked at me as though I were a Great Dane whose paws were filthy. What she realized before I did was that my footwear had succumb to scientific principles; my budget boots were disgorging fluid with every step I took, water rushing out of the sides of the boots with great force, spilling onto the floor.

I shuffled to the table trying to avoid sloshing. The man across from me was pristine in a vintage gabardine jacket and rubbers over his wing-tipped oxfords. His cashmere scarf was finer than my fake one, and he sat with a stoic confidence that I assumed was gifted to individuals that had spent more than 30 days in the city. Each sip of my Sazerac and every word uttered about how grad school and the resultant change of career would revolutionize my life reminded me that I might not fit in. It was my nature to have cold feet, and on that day I did, quite literally, as my soggy boots created pools on the tile where they rested, the squid ink decay of car exhaust and other city unpleasantries deep enough for ducks to wade on the Italian tile.

The next day I took the red line to the Chicago stop. I found a place called Soupbox and ate clam chowder, my feet still suffering the same fate from the melting snow. I walked to the North Face store and charged new boots, a puffy sleeping bag coat, a hat, gloves, and a scarf to my emergency credit card. It was easily the most expensive shopping spree I’d had in all of my 23 years, but I wore the boots out of the store and threw the soggy sandbags I’d just disowned into the bin in front of the Jamba Juice.

There’s a joke that all women in this city look the same during the winter months, but it’s more about survival than conformity. Try walking two miles in fake UGGs and a wool pea coat in negative temperatures; chances are you’ll accept your fate as a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Today I put on the same boots and coat I bought that day and spent 45 minutes dusting my car off from the snow that festooned its hood. There’s exactly one type of person in Chicago and I learned that quickly: We’re all masochists who would rather complain about the weather than move somewhere that’s better (and that’s because the spring and fall are amazing here).

Without a Budget, You’re not going to make it

I knew that living in a big city would be more expensive, but it’s also fair to say that I didn’t have a great concept of how exponentially more difficult my life would be financially. Prior to the big move, I’d never been reckless fiscally. Sure, I decided to fly to Los Angeles on a whim to see a concert with my best friend and probably spent more on vinyl records than necessary, but I always had a safety net. I knew that money would be tight here. I had loans for grad school with a couple thousand in residual funds to help defray the cost of housing (which it did, for roughly two months out of the year). I had a full-time job, but was earning just enough to subsist, not thrive.

When you’re strapped is when you learn the truth about your spending habits. Emergency credit cards turned into a means for paying for groceries, and each month when payments were due I played the shell game with my bank accounts and shifted money from one place to another, watching it disappear and feeling guilty over every purchase from eyeliner to toilet paper.

I had no outrageous spending habits to correct, but when you don’t have much it adds up quickly, especially when you don’t adjust your discretionary spending. I naively thought that if I avoided places like Barneys and Alinea that the money would just sort itself out, but coffee four times a week, beer three times a week, and even the cheap tacos added up. Then came the car troubles, a sick puppy, and a back injury. Bottled water taxes and the 9.25 percent the city takes on everything sent me into spending depressions (and forced me to buy one of those stainless steel water bottles).

Then came the frugal years. When I’d go out with friends, I’d surgically dissect our bill, paying for only the food I ate instead of subsidizing their drinking habits. It felt unfriendly and cold, but when every dollar mattered, it was the best I could do. I eventually stopped accepting dinner invitations and would eat Chef Boyardee before showing up for just drinks, where I’d drink club soda with lime, sometimes tipping bartenders in quarters. I got my hair cut by students who often left the ends jagged or split and the roots a different color from inexperience. I shopped at second-hand stores, bartered for tickets to baseball games, and limited my social calendar to free events.

My one oasis in an otherwise functionally poor existence was a student membership to the Art Institute. It was $50 I could have used, but on days when I felt lost, broke (which was most days), or in need of a few hours of escape, I could wander the museum for hours, rubbing elbows with Monet and French tourists. I memorized the museum; I could tell you which miniatures had dogs in them and which I wished were real so I could live in them. It was a slice of culture, one that I played like a VHS tape of Roger Rabbit when I was a kid. With afternoons of art and free fruit-water on the members-only patio, I was enriching my life since my other alternative was usually sitting at home.

My salary is now above the area median income, and yet budgets seem even more important now. There’s a tendency for young professionals here to parade about as though they are millionaires when in fact they are swimming in debt or one disaster away from bankruptcy.  I went out with someone recently who informed me that he spent over $450 on cabs last month, all because his friends like to go out in River North and he doesn’t like to take the train. I lived with someone who made a modest salary, yet went out to eat four nights a week at the city’s fanciest restaurants and often wondered aloud what had become of her savings. My father always warned me when I was a kid that “expenses would rise to meet income.” What he didn’t tell me, of course, is if you’re not careful your expenses can rise exponentially higher than your income and that you’ll have to call and beg for some emergency cash because your emergency credit card is maxed out. This leaky sieve of a city encourages commerce. I’ll spend the rest of my life confronting that, I’m afraid.

When people come to visit, let them stay with you, and give them a map.

There was a reaction that I always waited for when I told people I was moving to Chicago: the moment their eyes would light up when they realized that they might not have to pay for a hotel on their next visit. I can sympathize with that reaction, having done my fair share of sofa surfing over the years. Since I was moving to a place where I hardly knew anyone, the prospect of people coming to visit was exciting.

It’s exciting, that is, until you realize what visitors entail. You have to have the refrigerator stocked, even if they plan to eat every meal out, because if you don’t, they’re going to decide they want bagels at the house or mimosas before heading out to see Buckingham Fountain. You also have to convince them that you always have clean sheets, an organized closet, and guest towels. If it’s your parents, then you also have to hide everything that would imply that you’re doing anything but ideal, which means stashing the mail, prescription medication, text books, and condoms.

In my first year, a handful and a half of people came to stay.

Sometimes it was strictly transactional. An old coworker needed a place to stay during Lollapalooza, another on their drive up north. But the worst trips, and most of them were like this, was the Thursday-Sunday trip in which they showed up agenda-less and proclaimed, “We are here to experience ‘city-life!’” Of course what they don’t know is that once you’re living in the city, the definition of that becomes very different than it does for someone who is just passing through. My definition of “city-life” was sitting in coffee shops with free wireless, going to bars to watch college football, and going to my favorite BYOB Neapolitan pizza place that wasn’t mentioned in any of the tourism brochures. To them it meant going to the Cheesecake Factory, then ESPNZone, and then riding your bellyful of overpriced nachos and tasteless cheesecake to the top of the Sears Tower to look out upon the sprawling landscape.

After paying roughly $45 dollars to see the top of the damn skyscraper and $50 for two martinis at the Hancock, you lose your energy to argue that there are better restaurants than Weber Grill, better bars than Mothers, and accept that some people are just on a reckless quest through the tourist strip of Chicago. These people are oblivious and unsalvageable and they should be sent out on their own. Arm them with directions to Lou Malnati’s (which they’ll like better than Pequods), the Bean, the Macy’s on State, Wrigley Field, and something Ferris Bueller- or Blues Brothers-related and send them on their way. Don’t go with them and tell them to save room for dinner and take them somewhere that you like and listen to the things they saw. And when at the end of the dinner they say, “I wish we had come to more places like THIS,” do not smile. And do not, under any circumstances, say that you told them so.

I knew that I wouldn’t get out of bed when my alarm went off at 5am this morning, but it was worth a try. Even in the process of going to bed—somewhere between double and triple checking the alarm and giving Lola her bedtime snack—I knew that waking before the sun was a lofty and ambitious goal, especially for a Monday, but I had to at least try. I don’t naturally get up with the sun; if left undisturbed and in room dark enough, I can easily sleep until the Price is Right. As much as I’d like to be a morning person, the type who springs from bed like wheat bread from the greased springs of a toaster, I’m lacking the proper genes or life exuberance to make that happen consistently. The only times I ever exit bed with alertness is the days that I wake up hours before the alarm with the extreme paranoia of missing a flight or an important meeting. For months now, I wake up with three layers of regret, the first from staying up two hours too late, the second from hitting snooze for thirty minutes longer than I should have, and the third knowing that I went to bed without finishing all of my projects.

There is a delicate line between depression and exhaustion; I’ve bounced like a pinball between them this year; lately it’s been impossible to distinguish between the days when I am frustrated and the ones where I’m satisfied, but my muscles are too fatigued to form a smile. I recognize the days when I’m stressed, those are punctuated by time spent behind locked doors crying, hoping that no one can hear. The tired days happen with great frequency, four cups of coffee turn into six and I still drift on conference calls and pinch myself to stay awake in the ninth inning. There have been plenty of days of joy this summer, involving time by the lake, out with dear friends, or agenda-less with reading material, but for the better part of seven months it’s been a grind of counting the hours until it’s all over, all while watching them zip by, unable to reclaim any sort of routine or memory beyond the moment.

Judging by the number of people who feel like life is passing them by, I’d guess it’s probably normal. “I’m just too busy,” their lips uttering endless platitudes lamenting that there, “just aren’t enough hours in the day,” and that, “they don’t sleep!” because they’ve been, “burning the candle at both ends,” since, “time just flies by, yanno?”  Maybe we’re all exhausted from one thing or another; perhaps we’re destined to live stages of our lives in a fugue state fogged-and- bogged by anything and everything. But I’ve been exhausted before, and this exhaustion, all mine and all consuming, feels different than it has in the past.

The 5am alarm was to get to the 9-5, which is actually a 7-6 if I’m lucky or a 6-9 if I’m not. The extra time was to guarantee that I finished cleaning from the party I had the night before, a chance to take the empties to the dumpster before anyone would see me in my tattered Louisville sweatshirt and shorts that reveal more leg than strangers should see. Getting up early would also mean that I’d get the full shower instead of the abridged one, and that the entire makeup routine— layers and layers from four different brushes—would be satisfied instead of the smoky eyes and concealer on rushed days. I feel better on days when my belt goes with my shoes, but damned if I don’t choose sleep over perfection even on days when I’m not physically tired, leaving me feeling frumpy and unfinished, inferior to the bodies and couture of a Type-A office.

And at least three nights a week, when the day should be winding down, part of mine is just beginning. In the evening hours I’m tethered to the laptop and television, messing around with Play Index, writing drafts, and calling editors. I swap time at the gym and well-balanced meals for radio hits and podcasts, fulfilling a seemingly foolish dream of entertaining and enlightening. Most days the words are there. Others though, the exhaustion—or the depression—take hold before I’ve even slipped into my pajamas and house shoes, and I get so worked up about deadlines that I suffer epic tantrums somewhere between topic choose and stat searching. Writing for a paycheck is different than doing it for yourself. It’s frustrating and time-consuming, all while punching someone else’s clock, not to mention the unfriendly and often misogynistic audience has partially broken my spirits on numerous occasions. But even on days when my sex-life is up for public discussion by strangers, or more innocently when I mix up David and Daniel Murphy in my first and final drafts, I work through it, often with laughter. The truth with writing is, that even on the worst days, I recognize that I’m fortunate enough to actuate a pipedream and collect a paycheck in the process.

But the exhaustion, depression, and general apathy have made both jobs impossible for me to do well. I know I am valued, and perhaps integral at times, but I’d never fool myself into thinking that the buildings won’t get built if I’m not there to crunch the numbers, or that the world would be any different if I weren’t around saying something about Adam Dunn. But part of the exhaustion is expectation; we have to do something with our lives, and Development and Writing are what I’ve chosen to do with mine. Part of it is certainly financial related, but in the process of creating a life for myself, I’ve pushed myself to work constantly not with career advancement as the motivator, and not because I had any misconceptions about the imprint that I leave on projects.

I’ve been doing it because without it, I didn’t feel like I had anything else.

I’ve been working on changing that, learning to work because it pays the bills and because it’s rewarding to be accomplished instead of using it as an escape from the voids. It doesn’t matter if I work until 4pm or 11pm; the apartment is still empty when I get there. And accepting extra assignments can’t distract from having a sick parent, even if it makes me forget about it for a little while. And the hours spent writing? For awhile, they weren’t about a love of baseball or the craft of writing, but more about avoiding the fact that I didn’t have anywhere to go or anyone to see. It’s easiest to be busy—no one questions anything but your sanity when you’re working hard. It’s much easier to spew platitudes and keep your hands busy than it is to sit idly and wonder where the hell some things went wrong.

It’s been trial and error, but I’ve mostly found the balance that has been missing. I brought back the things that I abandoned, and packed my week with activities that didn’t stress or complicate things. I painted for seventeen hours, dancing through the kitchen with paintbrushes as microphones, stomping carefully as not to disturb the makeshift easel that held the canvas. I pulled out a camera I haven’t used in five years and shot roll after roll of film, manually adjusting apertures and minding the rule of thirds while I explored my neighborhood. I ate lunch and didn’t count a single calorie, indulging in old favorites and new beers, and even sang along with the bartender and the Beach Boys. I read a book on a train, in a coffee shop, on a park bench, in bed until four in the morning listening to the rain fall, knowing I didn’t have to force myself from bed for any purpose other than breakfast.

I also remembered, for a brief moment, what it felt like to be completely engulfed by someone else, stepping outside of myself in the pursuit of being consistently good to another instead of focusing so strongly on my own needs. And I started writing again—not because I had to, not because someone was paying me, but because I missed the intimate hours alone with a moleskine and a keyboard writing things that I’d probably never show anyone.

I went to the ballpark on Friday, and arrived just as the gates open. I sat in the Bleacher Bar, just beyond the right field fence drinking cheap beer, watching the Kansas City Royals take batting practice. I admired the pristine field, and embraced the way that the air feels just as the sun is going down on the Southside. We drank, we swore, and we pontificated on a team that lost 99 games this season. It felt good to be among people; it felt better to keep score and watch a game without a deadline. It’s a shame that I allowed myself to go months without experiencing baseball like that, especially since the season is now over.

And still free from the pressure of work and deadlines, I made the best out of an evening of canceled plans by making cookies that I decorated like baseballs. I hung the ticket-stub shadowbox and some pictures in my office, and festooned the apartment with vintage baseball cards, an egg hunt of earned run averages and runs batted in for those who stopped by for my housewarming to find.

These two weeks have felt normal, the closest to complete and satisfied I’ve been as an adult. I laughed and smiled at strangers; I sang along with Roy Orbison in a parking lot with the car windows down, not caring who heard me. I gave hugs and at moments talked the loudest instead of meekly deferring to everyone else. Some days it’s still going to be hard to get out of bed—but I’m going to be working less. If the past two weeks have proven anything, it’s that I have some serious catching up to do.

Last Friday, I left work early, something I hadn’t done in nearly three months.

In my last job, finding an excuse to leave early was the only reason to go to work.  I took Lola to dozens of imaginary vet appointments, had numerous important trips to the bank (which closes early), and even fibbed a  weekly therapist appointment that required me to leave early every Tuesday—sorry, the fake doctor doesn’t take appointments past five.

The new job, however, keeps me tethered to my desk from the early hours before most coffee shops open until around the fifth inning of the East Coast games. There aren’t any vacation days, or even paid time off, for the foreseeable future. For 50+ hours a week, it’s just me, my thoughts, and a brand-new IBM laptop that still smells like fresh plastic.

Everyone was gone, though, and instead of spending hours with my eyes burning from the strain on multi-tabbed spreadsheets, I forwarded my calls to my cellphone and left the computer on, just in case someone came back to the office looking for me.

I didn’t have plans—I never seem to have plans these days.

I came home from the office and created my favorite bath concoction: part Mr. Bubble, part bath salts, and just a light squeeze of lavender oil. I read a book that a friend gave me over a year ago, but ditched it four pages in for a copy of a Fantasy Football magazine.

Instead of throwing on jeans and boat shoes, I upgraded to a sundress, my favorite loafers, and curled my hair in beach waves, instead of a wet ponytail. I wore my Prada sunglasses instead of the cheap aviators I wear to baseball games, and carefully applied the rose-red lipstick that I wear for special occasions.

After turning from side-to-side obsessively in the full length mirror, I accepted truce with my shadow and added the diamond earrings my mother gave me for Christmas, a ring from an ex-boyfriend that I never stopped wearing, and a necklace from a vintage store near the train in my new neighborhood.

Lola got her Kibbles N Bits, and I filled my flask—the one engraved with my favorite player’s slash line—with bourbon, and took to the tree-lined streets in search of….something.

I walked in a large square around my neighborhood, before taking the bus to see the new Woody Allen movie.

I purchased a single ticket with a student discount even though I haven’t been in enrolled in years, and my hunger-panged stomach propelled me to the concession line, since I’d skipped lunch in favor of a bath.

I dug in my wallet, looking for my debit card to pay for my popcorn and mixer.

“It’s $9.50,” a squeaky-voiced Northwestern student said while I searched for the card in my clutch that contains more baseball stubs than dollars.

A man entered behind me and sat his items within my popcorn’s buffer zone, which confused the register operator.

“Are you paying for his, too?” he asked.

My face turned red, and my voice quiet. “No, I’m here alone.”

Going to the theatre alone doesn’t bother me—it proposes no dilemma of loneliness—but I’d prefer to never say it aloud. I’m not a frequent moviegoer, but I do know there’s no benefit in platonic movie company, unless the proximity of someone else’s heartbeat is as soothing to you as it is to puppies.

Non-platonic seatmates, however, are an upgrade over platonic company, but not necessarily over going solo. Non-platonic seatmates are good for handholding, shoulder pillows, and when I was much younger, more risqué fun—but I certainly do not have company of that ilk to speak of these days.

When I arrived, there were plenty of open seats, and I walked up the stairs to one of the last rows as a courtesy to the geriatric couples who gravitate to Allen’s films and require the aisle seats for frequent bathroom breaks and Poly-grip reseals.

I was alone, and I was okay, but sometimes these situations serve as a good reminder that there are societal norms and pressures that must continually be confronted, even if you’re within the bounds of normal behavior.

Before the movie, I was alone with my thoughts, not because I was feeling exceptionally introspective, but because the MLB App wasn’t working. After counting seats and then people, I did the math on something else.

How long had it been since I had been on a date. The answer? Eight months.

Eight months may not seem like a long time for regular daters, but like most things in life, I never approached dating conventionally. After breaking off an engagement at 22, I spent the following years as a serial dater, eating lavish free meals and seeking a connection, while mostly piling up on heartache and refining my abilities at feigning interest for long stretches of time.

I spent three years this way, with handfuls of dates per month, filling up the spaces in my douchebag BINGO card. There were nice Jewish boys with mommy issues, and musicians and artists that insisted on coffee instead of dinner because it was cheaper. I had dinner with men who wore too much cologne and were impolite to waiters, and ones that showed all of the warning signs of being in committed relationships like obsessive phone-checking and constant over-the-shoulder watching. I sat in theatres with men that were considerably older, but were more mature and reliable than men my own age, and I dated several men that were clearly unsure about their sexuality, yet kept buying women dinners, hoping there would be a spark.

I prepped myself for every outing as though it could be the night where I finally met The One, and even in the present, but especially retrospectively, it was a pitiful existence, a cycle of desperation that didn’t even make sense, considering I wasn’t lonely or longing. It became a cycle, where bad dates fueled the desire to go on more dates just to erase the shitty aftertaste, and to prove, definitively, that there were good men who would return phone calls, not text too much, and help change flat tires in emergencies.

The good news for single ladies everywhere is that I met plenty of them, but given that I was still unpacking the baggage of a four-year mind-fucking relationship, even though several candidates for The One came along, I would intentionally sabotage the whole thing in the interest of autonomy.

I worked hard to convince others that I was just a free spirit that didn’t need meaningful relationships with men for fulfillment, yet in the end I became a caricature of singledom.

I’m not alone in this—there is a large sect of women who tread through their mid-20s breaking hearts and acting recklessly, just as their male counterparts do. We’re the ones who didn’t marry our high school sweethearts and were spurned by our college lovers and we’re free to sample all of the possibilities of what life can bring. We can see how it feels to date older men, to make out with younger ones. What it’s like to date lawyers with money, or writers who leave love notes and give backrubs as currency.

It sounds cold, malicious even, but it’s not. The freedom to choose, to explore, is a luxury afforded to those who are willing to be patient, and not rush to live their lives bound by vows and contained behind picket fences. At some point, however, the dating becomes sterile, and the enjoyment in meeting new faces is lost, and then there are just two desires: Waking up alone, or waking up to same someone else’s breath on the back of your neck every morning.

Now in recovery from dating too much, I’ve spent the past two years waffling between consistently being alone, and consistently wanting to find The One again. But this time, it’s less about the feats of strength and mental gymnastics to prove that we’re made for each other, and more about a gut feeling.

I’m told this is how grown-ups date.

But even though I’ve clearly sorted what I want, it’s not a simple thing to implement. My career has come first, and when I’m not chained in my office working on spreadsheets, I’ve chosen to spend my evenings analyzing baseball to help pay down some of my grad school debt.

There’s a fierce proudness in learning that I can do most things on my own. My own apartment, new car, an entire room dedicated to my meaningless baseball collection, enough of a savings cushion to go on vacation, and sole control of the remote and contents of the refrigerator. I painted the entire apartment without consulting anyone on paint colors (other than an interior designer), and did the work myself even though it probably would have been safer to have someone there to hold the ladder.

I’ve done, and will continue to do, single well. I’ve conquered the fears of loneliness and depression that can sometimes accompany it, and I’ve come out on the other side realizing that a lot of those feelings don’t stem from the need to receive affection, but because the desire to give it.

Movies alone are unfulfilling not because it’s embarrassing to be in public alone—it’s not, and it shouldn’t be—but because laughing alone in a vacuum is worse than not laughing at all.

And that’s the part, platonic or not, that seems to be missing these days.

“Are these seats taken?” an oversized grandma asked as she reached to move my satchel, her chipped hot-pink polish exposed on her shaking hands.

“Uh, no. I’m here alone,” I said with a smile, as I scooped up my gummy frogs, popcorn, and bourbon and moved to my left, realizing that the theatre was now packed and that my space on the outskirts was now prime real estate.

She didn’t smile, or even acknowledge I spoke, before turning around.

“JOHN! THIS GIRL IS HERE ALONE AND SHE SAID WE CAN SIT HERE. GET UP HERE.”

Her husband pulled himself up the stairs, one at a time, balancing his Raisinets and his desire to reach his Mrs. before the previews started.

Some turned to look at the girl who was taking in a movie alone, but instead of cowering, I was confident for the first time in awhile that I had finally figured everything out.

I got an email over a month ago reminding me that it was time to renew my domain name. I marked it as important, then promptly went about my business for another 35 days.

I think I got a warning when I posted my most recent article, and thought, “Well, it’s probably time to settle up that tab,” then promptly forgot again because I’m sure my wallet was at least ten feet away from me, and I was engrossed in reading, writing, and watching baseball, as I’m wont to do.

Today’s final reminder came in the form of an email, which I read in the bitchiest of tones, even though it was an automated reminder from the domain host.

I’d waffled on the idea of keeping this site over the course of the past year. There have been times where writing and publishing for public consumption has been too much. But fortunately, despite deciding for a brief period that getting away was better than being subject to ridicule, I’m now in a good place with it all. The truth is, I enjoy writing enough that it’s worth some of the nonsense that comes along with it.There are days where I feel depressed when I can’t drop everything and write–and those are the days that I know that I’m meant to keep doing this.

So, Baseball-Prose.com is going to be around for another year. And, it’s finally the year that I won the battle for the baseball-prose.com domain as well, so if you’re anti-hyphen, you can now get there either way. I’m looking forward to another year of creating content for this site (and hopefully more volume!). I’ll still be fulfilling my obligations over at SBNation.com, as well, with my weekly column there, and hopefully there will be more opportunities throughout the year, just as there have been in years past. As I’ve said before, but mean sincerely: Thanks to everyone who reads this.

But today feels good, and I’ll consider it the two-year anniversary of this incarnation of this particular site (which evolved out of other works, so it’s hard to really pin a birthday on it).

Without getting too introspective and nostalgic, I’ll just say that things have come a long way. I’ve gained confidence as a writer, even if sometimes that confidence is just knowing I’m able to sit in one spot for hours at end staring at a screen.  These days, the office is filled with boxes because I’m moving again in a few weeks, but it’s still been nice to curl up in bed in the evenings with the laptop. I’m working on a few things that I haven’t published yet, but there should be more content here in the coming weeks.

Lastly, this year of writing has a motto, one of which I’ve put on a Post-It note on my laptop and will hopefully stick (the message, not the adhesive). I had dinner with a friend this week, someone whose work I respect and has become an important person in my world. We talked about the grind of writing, of work, of relationships, and eventually settled on a conversation about gender and the assumptions of onlookers.

Two nights before, I had offered him a ride back to his place from US Cellular, because logistically it made the most sense. At dinner, I admitted that I was self-conscious about leaving the park with him, because the minds of onlookers would undoubtedly be substituting their own reality over what was simply a friend giving another a friend a ride.

The fact remains, as with most situations, we’re all dammed if we do and damned if we don’t, and that extends well-beyond the throngs of people who have nothing better to do but speculate on the sexual escapades of strangers. In what is possibly the best advice I have ever received, he told me simply, “It’s not your job to mitigate reactions.”

Perhaps the key to freedom is really just that simple. It’s worth a try, at the very least.

I’m not good at giving hugs.

It’s likely because I hit an early growth spurt, the Big Bird in a sea of little people. My limbs were long, and I’d stand akimbo until the last second, trying to decide if it’s a one arm or two arm effort. I grew into my arms, but I still don’t know where to put my head. Do I look outward, catching glimpses of the freedom that waits after the embrace, or should I nuzzle it into their neck a little for more intimacy?

Hugs shouldn’t be difficult, but what do you expect from that person who walks on the wrong side of the hallway, a frequent dancer in the which way are you going to go? Oops, was that your foot? This way? Uh, Nope, still in your way! shuffle.

Most people would just shake it off, but I replay those touches and every time I’ve used the phrase “You, too!” when it wasn’t appropriate.

“Have a safe flight!”

“You, too!”

Stupid, Cee. Why can’t you just stop being awkward for two seconds?

Goodbyes with my grandfather were exceptionally awkward. We would hug, and he’d pull back from our embrace, placing his hands on my shoulder. Even as an adult, his hands made me uncomfortable. During the Korean War, his left hand was badly damaged from shrapnel and his thumb had served as decoration ever since. He was permanently poised for a thumb war, and as a kid I thought his hand wasn’t real, until I noticed it tanned and the other fingers worked just like mine did. He didn’t carry a pen around like Bob Dole, since it was his predominant hand; he continued to use it for feeding himself, using the clicker, and for driving.

After hugs, he’d always say, “Glad you got to see me,” an ironically narcissistic reply, given that my grandfather was one of the most selfless men I’ve ever met. The first time he said it, I think it was just a slip of the tongue, but since it elicited such laughter and startled eyes, he continued to say it for years.

Sometimes, I’d try to beat him to the punch and slip it in during our awkward goodbye embraces, but he’d act like he didn’t hear me.

“Glad you got to see me,” he’d say one last time, squeezing my shoulders with his good and bad hand. He didn’t get to say that before he passed away last week, and I didn’t make it to Ohio in time to say it to him in person, either.

Bereavement policies are meant to mourn the loss and make arrangements, not for saying goodbye, so I didn’t leave for Ohio until after he was gone. My mother kept calling to ask me to make the six-hour drive to make it there in time to see him in the ICU, but every time the doctors said, “it should be a matter of hours,” he’d still be breathing the next morning. I don’t believe in miracles; he was surely never going to recover from the surgery that removed vital organs and guts, but I certainly didn’t want to be the new girl at work who cried dead grandpa and couldn’t furnish an obituary if he was miraculously among the living at the end of the company’s five-day policy.

The religious sect of the hospital said that he wasn’t dying because he was waiting for someone because his decision to extend his suffering didn’t make sense otherwise. So, they phoned me, then my sister, then my father, and we were all instructed to say our goodbyes since we couldn’t be there. I closed the door to my office and stared out of the window as I spoke before static interrupted.

“Wait, am I on speakerphone?”

“Uh….no.”

“Seriously, you had me on speakerphone?”

“Sorry… continue.”

Hey grandpa, it’s Cee. Sorry I couldn’t make it down; I just started a new job. That seems like a piss poor excuse, but I figured the hospital was crowded enough, and that you’ve already got enough women at your bedside. There was a chuckle.

“AM I ON SPEAKERPHONE AGAIN?”

“….yes.”

“DAMNIT, CAN’T YOU JUST PUT IT UP BY HIS EAR OR SOMETHING?”

The religious folks here seem to think that you’re holding on because you wanted to hear from someone, they think it might be me. I don’t think it’s me, but on the off chance that it is, I just wanted to apologize for not being there, but that I’m thinking of you. I love you…I’ll miss you…and… GLAD YOU GOT TO SEE ME.

I chuckled through tears, and no one heard me but him. After years of awkward hugging and farewells, I finally nailed it. He died just two hours later, not because I’d given him permission, but because they finally satisfied the waiting period that the hospital required before unplugging the rest of the machines.

I hadn’t been to southern Ohio in three years, but I was going there last week, even if my grandfather hadn’t died. My cousin was getting married and I decided it was the best location to host my sister’s baby shower so that our relatives could attend.  The town where I was born isn’t a place I like to frequent–it’s a backward Air Force town that’s only redeemed by the presence of a Waffle House and good pizza—but it is the sort of toilet town where people get so coated in monotony that they can’t imagine life anywhere else.  It made sense to travel there, though, because past experience showed that if it’s not within 10 miles of home or smothered in gravy, most won’t show up. Now that he was gone, the bereavement clock sped up my departure date, and I packed my Mazda with a handful of black dresses, Lola and her Monkeyball, and started the six-hour drive.

At dinner the first night, we drank beers ($5.00 for a pitcher in that part of the country) and toasted to my grandfather, a life-long enjoyer of Miller High Life and PBR. The next morning, as the writer of the family, I was tasked with completing my grandfather’s obituary for the local paper. My grandmother supplied me with three pages of hand-written notes of his achievements in the military, in his career, and family. There was almost one full page of information about dead relatives.

With my sister and brother-in-law in tow, we looked for a place to write while other relatives met with the funeral home. Without a Wi-Fi source, we found our way to Friendly’s, stuck in the land that Starbucks has forgotten. Smoking was banned years ago, but the carpet still retained the smell and the tabletop was peeled laminate.

We ordered drinks to be polite, and when it became clear that our server wasn’t going to have any other tables during the lunch hour, we ordered a basket of fries to bump up our total. She was disappointed that we never ordered a Jim Dandy or a Fribble, but she was quick to refill our unlimited iced tea and we tipped 100% for the extended use of a table in such a depressing establishment.

The newspaper obituary, for those who have never written one, is the blandest, most stripped-down version of a person’s life, death certificate aside. The traditional format is stating the name, those who preceded the deceased in death, and those who are still alive. Then there’s a short blurb, VERY short, about the deceased as a person, which usually just states where they worked, who they drank with, one to two hobbies, and a final sentence about the arrangements. I wrote, while they watched.

“Can you Google the V.F.W post?”

“Can you spell Sasebo?”

“Should you use an oxford comma on obituaries?”

I finished it quickly, but it didn’t feel good. The folks that write phonebooks or write blender manuals probably get more enjoyment from their craft than I did that day. It was edited and submitted, and $371.00 later, my grandfather became a birdcage liner, a piece of wrapping paper, or a surface for peeling potatoes. My grandmother didn’t want us to add a photo, and when I saw it in the Sunday paper, even though I wrote it, I didn’t recognize it as my own writing (or my own grandfather).

So, here goes nothing.

My grandfather died at age 82, following complications from an unexpected bowel perforation. He was complaining that his hip hurt just a few days earlier, and X-rays showed that he had a cracked pelvis, though the doctors seem to agree now that the majority of the pain he felt was due to the undiscovered stomach issues, not his hip. He asked my grandmother to call him an ambulance in the middle of the night, but she decided to drive him to a hospital 45 minutes away, even though she had already taken an Ambien. We are lucky we didn’t lose both of them that day.

He’d been married to his second wife, my grandmother, for 54 years. For a long time, I didn’t know that it was the second marriage for both of them because they never talked about the blended family in blunt terms. Still, he had five daughters that he loved so much that he was willing to share one bathroom with them until they all got married and moved out. He had a dozen grandchildren, 11 girls and one boy, that he helped through major rites of passages including: underage beer drinker, blue gill fishing, marshmallow toasting, forehead can crushing, Dean Martin singing, poker playing, bologna sandwich making, sun soaking, grass cutting, boat docking, pier jumping, Drumstick eating, pocket knife wielding, panhandling, Frisbee tossing, bubble blowing, birdhouse building, and the art of Christmas tree decorating.*

*My grandmother hated Christmas decorations, but my grandfather insisted that they always decorate the entire house for the family gathering. Over time, the grand layout of model trains, dancing Santas, and Snowman candy dishes evolved into scotch taping poinsettia lights to the plaster archway by the kitchen, and using the same 4-foot Christmas tree each year. Instead of dismantling the fake tree and removing the tinsel, my grandmother cleared a spot in a storage closet upstairs and unceremoniously stored the festooned bush there 363 days out of the year. Knowing that the tree wasn’t trimmed with care each year was more devastating to me than realizing that Santa Claus didn’t exist, and I cried the first time I saw her take it up the attic stairs.

He loved to gamble, and would let me spend my allowance on Swedish fish, real Coke, and pull tabs at the VFW when I was eight. He helped me cheat at this old wooden bowling arcade game by knocking over the pins with his claw hand after the ball went whizzing by. He watched Westerns nonstop, and I would sit on the floor and pout because Black and White movies are pointless, and he’d just say “let her suffer!” in a John Wayne voice when my grandmother tried to coddle me. When I moved in with my grandparents one summer, I told my grandfather I was a vegetarian. He proceeded to make bacon every morning and told me it was there just in case I changed my mind.

Sometimes he would take me to Reds games, but it wasn’t apparent that he liked baseball. We would always leave in the fifth inning and he’d try to convince me that the game was actually over. As a compromise, we’d listen to Marty Brennaman in the car as we drove home. We’d be back in the house before the ninth inning was over, so I’d never know the outcome of the games.

When I was in college, I invited my boyfriend home for Thanksgiving, because his family lived in San Diego and it wasn’t convenient or affordable for him to fly home. I assured him that my family would love him, and made out in front of our dormitory waiting for my grandparents to pick us up. When they arrived, the look on my grandmother’s face was one of displeasure and fear because I didn’t think it was important to tell them he was African American. After much embarrassment for them, and some coaxing, we started the drive. We were fortunate we didn’t lose them that day, too. By the end of the weekend, my grandfather decided that he liked this gentleman very much because they both had ties to the Navy, and he gave him a firm handshake and a salute with his dead hand when they dropped us off. Even several years later, my grandfather still asked about him and asked why we weren’t together and married. He referred to my next boyfriend as, “the old man” and the “cradle robber” since he was considerably older than I was.

He was the peacemaker in a family of mischievous deviants. A diplomat, he could explain away every misunderstanding, every passive aggressive attempt at baiting, every wrong doing, and every tear. He stood up for himself when he needed, but he was happy to play ignorant to most disagreements. He gave all of his daughters a quarter once a week and told them each it was because they were his favorite.

He meant a lot of things to a lot of different people, and he was the glue that kept our family together.

They don’t let you put any of those stories in the paper, though.

When we arrived, our row was empty and so was the one behind it. It seemed unusual, to have so many vacant seats clustered together in an otherwise busy ballpark, but we shrugged and went on our quest.

I don’t know why we found our seats first, a funny ritual that I always partake in, just in case the seats have been rearranged or unclearly marked. I’ve been confounded by the aisles at Wrigley Field, I’m willing to slip ushers a few dollars when they wipe off the seat, especially when it is covered in pollen from the trees that are growing out of the concrete jungle in left field.

The concourse was lively; someone spilled Natty Boh on my new shoes, but I didn’t care because sometimes carbonated beverages on fresh leather is just one of the hazards of attending a baseball game. I tried to keep pace, but my heels were aching from wearing heels the night before and I was more than a little distracted by the wafting whiffs of O’s Pretzels and Bacon on a Stick as we entered the Eutaw Street Promenade.

I’m not one to amble in a crowd; years of city walking has sharpened my bob and weave skills through the masses, but at Oriole Park, I don’t care if dozens run into me, or worse, curse at me, I want to see the baseball placards in the concrete and on the warehouse building that mark long-distance momentous occasions. Learning the history of Luke Scott and David Oritz going yard take precedent over predictable gaits. And if you hopscotch the markers just right, dodging the toddlers, the other amblers, and the douchebag drunks that are rolling in from Pickles Pub, you land at the base of Boog’s and the Hall of Fame plaques. Mike Bordick is out of place and he hopes no one notices.

Thirty deep times two, and smack in the middle on slight chair with an umbrella like a lifeguard stand boasts, there he sits.

“Do you think the younger kids think he’s just some barbeque guy instead of a baseball player?”

“Aren’t you one of those kids yourself?”

He was gracious with photos; years of practice not just from his days on the field, but also from years of sitting in front of the smoked meat tent. He looked happier than you might imagine, perhaps just happy to be part of the organization on a day when the sun was shining and the team was winning. He didn’t look as big or as goofy as I expected; we had matching boat shoes.

“Are you going to take your picture with him?”

I have a fear of cameras, especially when there’s a crowd on the opposite side of the lens capturing their own mental photo of the desperation of a nobody clutching a somebody. A one-sided memory, as he would never see a copy, sounded like an experience I could do without. Still, he caught me looking at him. I fiddled with the strings on my sweatshirt, as I’ve done since I was old enough to try and distract myself in anxious moments.

He smiled at me, and I frowned at him. He posed for a picture and looked back and I flashed him the fakest smile I could muster. He signed an autograph, and looked my way again. I nodded. We were finally in sync. If I had the opportunity again, I’d ask him why he half-assed the barbeque experience by serving it with Heinz Barbecue Sauce instead of something homemade. Probably involves lawyers, and even still, I’m not sure that’s an acceptable answer.

The section is still barren, and it’s safe to put my feet on the railing, unless someone 6’7” or up walks by. If they do, they’ll get a Sperry shoestring to the cornea. We don’t talk, because we don’t have to. It’s just the sound of crunching Old Bay chips and slurping of East Coast Old Style from Oriole-striped cans, and we like it that way.

A reminder that sometimes the purists get mad if you call it Camden Yards. The ballpark itself is Oriole Park; the Oriole is singular. The complex in which the park resides is Camden Yards; the Yards is plural. On a formal basis, it’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards. You can call it Oriole Park, or say you’re at Camden Yards. But never say “Camden Yards is a beautiful baseball stadium.”

Carl Crawford takes a lot of walks, and that’s unusual for him. His fear of leading off was never real, and the more he sets the table, the credence it lends to that being true. No matter how much the analysts and Buck Showalter want Jake Arrieta to figure it all out, sometimes the only thing that seems fact is that the mental strains of the game can sometimes outweigh actual ability. As a pitcher with command issues, do the yips seem enviable?

There are three men behind us, all together, but none of them fit. The First is in his 30s, wearing a wedding ring and dressed impeccably, despite his trailer park accent. The Middle is ailing; he has a cane and keeps mentioning his knee and his hip. He’s not old, just aged by the sun and cigarettes. The End is in his 40s and works with computers and doesn’t appear again. The middle might be the uncle of the two small boys who clearly aren’t brothers, sitting with them.

Kids in the ballpark are a mixed bag. Some are precocious, others are oblivious. I like the ones that ask less than obvious questions like, “how many miles did the Dodgers travel.” The two behind us were being educated by the First, who keeps shouting “STRIKE HIM OUT” regardless of the count. The smaller kid has the voice that every parent dreads… nails down the chalkboard and the clanging of frying pans hybrid. He doesn’t say much, but he squeaks and sqwanks, emitting high-pitched noises with as much blatant disregard as a four-year-old can muster. I already didn’t like this kid; I liked him less after he kicked me in the head.

In the silence between their cheers for J.J. Hardy, we tried to have conversation. I spoke quietly about my desires to watch baseball in a bubble, one that the hyper hyena behind me couldn’t penetrate. The middle kept asking to no one in particular who the NL MVP was last year. I told him Posey, but he didn’t believe me. He’s limping through the streets of Baltimore proud of Yadier Molina.

A season ticket holder paces the concourse on a quest for foul balls. Every game, every at bat, he readies his fistful of leather for a rocketing nine inch circumference. When there’s a lefty, he’s on my left. When there’s a righty, he’s to my right. The First can’t believe security allows him to troll for balls, but they are accomplices in his quest.

The First doesn’t even finish his sentence before the troll catches a foul ball. The First thinks it is destiny, that his observance of behaviors caused the baseball gods to bestow a gift upon the seeker. The First morphs into Bob Woodward, and in his redneck twang he shouts, “HEY MISTER.  HOW MANY BALLS DO YOU HAVE?”

It was the First at his funniest, even accidentally. The ball troll says he caught over 60 balls in three seasons, all in cases at his home. He puts the ticket and at-bat in there for prosperity. I’d like to pretend I didn’t judge his hobby, but I did.

The kids are too young for candy, so the first gives them fireballs. He challenges them to keep it in their mouth for as long as possible and calls them pussies when they whine that they are too spicy. The littlest one throws it away and the first scolds him for being weak. I’m just glad he didn’t choke; I don’t know CPR.

Why do the Orioles sing about being Country Boys? It’s disorienting in an urban setting. Guys like Wallace don’t last long in the country. The First is playing air guitar with the Middle’s cane and I’m wishing for my baseball bubble or something stronger than 4.28 % abv.

When the fans chant “Let’s Go O’s” to my ears, it sounds like “Let’s Go Home.” And that’s what they did, after losing 4-7.