Standard Things

I was recently introduced to cava, a sparkling wine from Spain. It’s good, a down-to-earth substitute for champagne that costs $8 at Whole Foods. I bet, in a blind taste test, shit would get real.

Why should the French get all the credit?

Kenosha, Wisconsin is one of those cities people might reference to indicate “the middle of nowhere.” Sort of like when someone in Phoenix says, “It’s not like we’re in Kalamazoo” to mean, “At least we’re in a legit city.” I suspect that’s the case partly because the names of these kinds of towns have cartoonish phonetics. Ken–nohhhh–shaaaa. (Kalamazoo is obvious. Even Dr. Seuss thought so.)

Kenosha is home to about 100,000 people, but you wouldn’t know it driving in on I-94 West from Chicago. From that direction, Kenosha is dusty, hot and dry, at least on the first weekend in August. There’s farmland here and there. There’s a Peterbilt dealership. There are gas stations, many, and rest-stop fast food you’d see along any American highway. There’s an adult film store called “Select Video” right before you get back on I-94 to leave. (Although from my quick Google research, Select Video is technically in Zion, Illinois.)

Sometimes it’s easy for me to think, “God, who lives here?” about seemingly forsaken parts of this country. Cities and towns that fall under that category fascinate me. If someone handed me $5,000 to spend on a vacation, there are times I think I’d book a trip to the nooks and crannies of the United States before I’d plan some overseas extravaganza. To see how other people live, here, in terms that are equally transferable to my own experience on earth. Their lives would likely be quite different than mine, but in origin quite similar, and that’s the whole point.

Straight out of college, I spent two years in Gilroy, a small town about 80 miles southeast of San Francisco. Famed for being the “garlic capital of the world,” Gilroy qualifies as an American nook and cranny. It’s small, quaint, some might say forsaken (there were certainly days I thought so). But Gilroy had a sense of community, and as fucked up as some parts of it were (drugs, prostitution, typical inland California shit), it had a pulse just as real as that of a renowned city, albeit in a different way. No glitz. None. No glitter at all. Just real fucking people navigating the world. People with stories, secrets, problems, micro dramas, affairs, intense family issues, suspicions swept under the rug.

I love the energy and culture of a vibrant city. But driving through Kenosha today reminded me that we’re all just kinda trying to make it through, no matter where we are. Big cities mask real lives in their own ways, different from how small towns do. The lives are there, though, in each of these places. All somehow wanting to be heard.

I’ve come to view the typical “lifestyle blog” with disdain. I follow a couple of them, it’s true. And I look forward to my daily updates. But it’s never lost on me how materialistic most of them are and the consumerist culture they shove onto the reader.

Multiple unabashed links to “what I’m wearing, guys!” If the exact product is no longer available, links to adequate substitutes. Links to similar items in a range of prices. Links to ways to shop so the blogger gets a small financial kickback from the brand they’re pushing. Pinterest-ready photography. Soft focus. Urban-landscape backgrounds. And never the same exact outfit twice. By nature, most of these blogs have to stay somewhat on trend, which usually requires that the bloggers spend money. Frequently.

Once upon a time, lifestyle blogs were novel and groundbreaking. Now, I find most of them tired and old (keeping in mind that I follow a few). It’s just all so formulaic and mechanical. And the “buy, buy, buy” mentality…it’s gross.

At my last job, I wanted to impress people. It was weird. I wanted to be recognized by the bigwigs at the top, sometimes desperately. The few times I got a nod, it made me happy and proud until it wore off, at which point I’d assume the quality of my work was for shit. It was an unpleasant cycle that relied on other people for my self-worth.

I don’t know what changed or exactly when, but here, at my new job, I’m not looking to please anyone. I want my boss to be happy with my work, sure. When she tells me “nice job,” I get excited because she’s good. If she were to say, “I need better copy from you,” I’d start reading every great author on my bookshelf. But I wouldn’t feel like less of a person…at least I don’t think I would.

I no longer need those accolades. I don’t have to have praise heaped upon me to know I tried or did a good job. It’s an unfamiliar sensation for someone who tried every day for years to earn what I saw as vindication.

It’s a feeling of healthy detachment, and it’s not really all that bad.

I don’t really edit these posts. Sometimes I think I should, because technically this blog is public and this is me, it’s my writing. I want it to reflect well.

But I spend five out of seven days editing down my writing, getting it to fit to two lines, a box, a certain word count.

Here, the words fly on the page. And I’d rather they just stay.

Before moving to Chicago, I had about six weeks to get shit done. After I quit my job, there were eight hours each day to pack, make phone calls, set up appointments, tie up loose ends. And I hustled. I got shit done.

Around 11 p.m. on a Wednesday about a month ago, it dawned on me: In the jumble of extracting myself from the Bay Area, I forgot to download from my computer at work every single album I owned. My laptop at home was (and continues to be) an iTunes-incompatible dinosaur, so I stored all of my music at work.

This is one reason bootlegging is a bad idea. The only albums that show up in my iTunes library now are the ones I paid for.

At first, I was massively bummed. I realized that this was the reason I hadn’t listened to much music since I moved. Which is also, almost surely, a reason my emotions in general had hit a dead end. Happy things no longer made me happy. Sad things no longer made me sad. The only emotion that stayed intact was fear.

Slowly, though, I’ve warmed to the fact that 70 percent of my music was lost. Because so much of it was inextricably tied to people, places, memories, disasters from the past decade that I’d rather move on from. This allows me a fresh start. To create new neural pathways with new music. To start over, in yet another sense.

So I’ve been getting new albums here and there, listening to them at work. And when I discover an album I love, I no longer see ghosts. I see me.

It’s happened. A thing that was made that I loved will never be made again. The Adidas Adipure trainers with black soles and hot pink trim that I’ve been wearing to the gym for years are now discontinued.

This is why instinct tells me to buy multiples of things I love. The instinct to save money prevails.

So I’ve single-mindedly been searching for the 2.0, and I’m coming up short. The trend in gym shoes is OBNOXIOUS CRAZY COLOR IN YOUR FACE. Nothing simple. Nothing restrained. OBNOXIOUS CRAZY COLOR IN YOUR FACE.

Black soles. Black uppers. Colored trim. That’s it!

Overhead at the gym last night:

Buff Guy A: Man, I’m just now getting down to my summer body fat percentage. 

Buff Guy B: <snickers> Summer body fat percentage? 

A: Yeah, man. You know how it is. Mine always goes up like 3 percent over the winter. 

B: I feel you. It’s just hard to get in here.

These guys were fit and seemed proud of it. Their conversation stirred my apprehension about staying in shape over the winter. It doesn’t help that almost everyone I’ve talked to about the cold season (rather, those who have issued me unsolicited warnings) offer a bleak, hopeless outlook.

Generally, my glass is refillable. It’s neither half full nor half empty, though I lean toward the latter. I don’t expect (and at times become irritated by) an abundance of positivity.

So I don’t expect I’ll be bounding toward the gym when it turns cold. I don’t expect I’ll want to go more often than I don’t. I don’t expect my motivation to be as present as it is on a day like today, 88 degrees and dry.

But I do expect myself to try. Always. To just try. The people in Chicago I’d like to meet exist, and they say: Yeah, it’s harder when it’s cold. But that’s why you do it. And you will.

My fellow copywriter and new favorite person at this job is bubbly, bright and blonde. She’s a genuine soul who is similar to me in some ways (enjoys time alone; does not aspire to have a fancy title) and quite different in others (bubbly; bright; blonde).

What I admire about this girl is that she’s hardcore. She has a two-year-old daughter and a 5-month-old son. She gets to work at 8 a.m. She’s a runner. When her daughter was born, she found her daily trips to the gym weren’t so daily anymore. So she saved her pennies, bought a treadmill and put it in her basement.

Now, with a small baby, she runs when she can. But it’s at least four times a week. Yesterday, she ran at 10 p.m. The day before that, 5 a.m. I asked her this morning: With work and midnight feedings and running and the daily grind, are you tired?

“Yeah,” she said. “I am. But, you know. You just kind of do what you have to do. To get through and feel sane.”

Today my alarm was set for 7 a.m. I hit snooze twice. This makes me feel lazy. My friend is inspiring.

So is the woman I saw this afternoon on my way out to grab lunch. She’d lugged a stationary bike from the on-site gym at work into the sunny, 85-degree air. And she was going for it. Full sweat. Shirt off. No fucks. She was still going for it when I got back a half-hour later. I felt lazy again, a bag of greasy food in my hand.

It takes episodes like these to get me off my ass. To challenge myself in small ways (floss more; don’t hit snooze), and in big ways (eat cleaner; run with focus).

Try harder. Do more. Be better. This is the goal.

I’m so wrapped up lately in seasons and the change they represent, both in the context of monumental leaps and softer, quieter shifts. 

The sight of neon-orange flip-flops on clearance at Target made me smile today. To see that rubber lingerie for the feet shove over for fall’s beautiful boots. High boots, low boots, boots with chunky heels. Boots with fake shearling, boots with oversized zippers.

The basic boot, the symbol of fall’s hello.