mexico, like it used to be!

i have successfully returned from mexico, without apparently bringing back a single unfriendly microorganism in my bowels. either that or my bowels have become more diplomatic and don't just expel every foreigner it meets. ...wait, that's not what i was going to talk about. here, as promised, are some photos from the last week:

this or something like it was what the clinics we did looked like. in the foreground we have pete, the physician's assistant i worked with all week. in the background we have mexicans. sick mexicans, probably. this was the third of four clinics we did, during which time we saw about 350 patients (including 100 on this and the day previous). i enjoyed working with pete, and i think we made a pretty good team. this picture also hints at the importance of dust in the tiny poverty-stricken towns we visited. it's not just a reason to buy pledge and a medium on which to write "wash me" on windshields--it's also roads, sidewalks, floors, and the thing the hot dry wind blew in your eyes!

here's a shot of another clinic, before we started. this was most of the people who had already lined up before we'd arrived. no kidding, probably 75% of the kids in the picture have a cold, sinus or ear infection, or flu. and of those, about 3% cover their mouths when they cough. i, then, am a testament of the miraculous disease-preventing power of God, because i probably had an index of infectious saliva on my arm at any given moment during a clinic. the whiteys in this photo are, from left to right, johanna, kelly, and david.

this is the scene previous to a third clinic. the pastor's wife had made us a delicious crab salad, which you can see us eating here. while we all appreciated and were probably to some degree humbled by this generous gesture, david's facial expression, and johanna's watching him eat it, more or less sum up the group's feelings about the actual eating of this dish--it's hard to make out in the photo, but what we have here is crab meat pulled right out of the ocean, lettuce, and some kind of mayo base to the whole thing, which had apparently been sitting out long enough for the lettuce to wilt before we tore into it. i don't know how savvy you are on what not to eat in little tiny villages out in the middle of nowhere in mexico, but...i think i just listed all of the major things to avoid. but we soldiered on, and we all didn't get sick. when someone said we'd just have to smile and eat it and trust God with the rest, i said "so...you think we'll get sick." but somehow God sent neither lightning bolts nor amoebas to my belly in response, and we all lived happily ever after, even at great distances from toilets.

here's a shot of me in action. notice my form--i'm leaned way in, like i'm about to interpret the sound of her heartbeat, should it become necessary. for the record, the heartbeat sound in spanish comes out as "tun tun. tun tun." this was at the end of the day, which is sort of unfortunate because you can't really appreciate the crowds and general activity going on for most of the day while we worked. so you'll just have to take my word for it--we were pretty much rock stars. ROCK STARS!

in addition to working, there was a lot of playing. we stayed in a missionary house about a 10 minute walk from the beach, so in the mornings we'd go over there. one morning i went exploring a little and decided to check out an apparently deserted and under construction house. while i was there the watchdog ("pulgoso," i later learned he was called) alerted the security guard (gabriel) to my presence. gabriel is, i'm sure, an excellent security guard, but i found that he also makes a top-notch tour guide after minimal conversation. he showed me the house and told me a bit about the place and his life while we walked. the house was very cool, and i'm currently working on a good plan to usurp the wealthy americans to whom the place belongs in the near future. if it works out you can come down to party with me.

here, then, is one such view from the house. you're probably wondering what hair styling products i use, but try to focus. (but i'll let you in on a secret--i just use a hair compressing device known as a "baseball hat" and it does the rest. the deeper mystery is, why'd i take the hat off for this self-portrait if my hair looked so dumb underneath? and that's one i won't answer for you just now.) don't tell anyone, but the beach where we were supposed to be doing all this thankless work was pretty awesome. you can kind of see it in this picture.

so there's some pictures from mexico. there's a lot more, and maybe i'll show you later. or maybe you should come over and i'll show you. it's up to you later. don't forget, though--tuesday night is menomena's show here in chicago, and it's also wednesday morning over in china.

trains, planes, and automobiles

today begins a stretch of adventure and excitement. in a few moments i'll head out the door and get on the train which will carry me (via airports and such) to mexico for the next week before it brings me back long enough to clean my clothes (and show you all pictures, of course!) and then head out once again, this time to china (via the other airport). this is, i guess, what wandering folks like myself do when they feel the icy grip of a 4-year (plus) commitment creeping up on them.

i am going to mexico with a group from my lincoln church led by dr. martin (that's him modeling the proper way to say "ah" from the last time i went). for the past several years he has gone to a series of small pueblos in northwestern mexico to do free clinics there. 2 years ago i went as an interpreter, and this year i'll be reprising that role as well as once again meddling with the setup and attempting to find the very best, most efficient way to clear the language barrier and see as many patients as possible. i'm very excited about the trip and the challenges and fun that i'm sure are awaiting all of us there.

my trip to china, on the other hand, will probably not be of any benefit to anyone other than the people around here who are glad when i'm not here. my mom and i are going just purely for the fun and edification of it, and also of course to finally find the magical, mythical part of china where the world's toys are made. this is a trip i've dreamt of ever since i played with my first transformers and while converting a car to an ominous looking robot (with lasers!) i wondered to myself "where on earth did such a fantastic piece of plastic come to be?" and there, on the robot's food (formerly a rear fender) was the answer: made in china. so china, here i come! (in a week.)

come back soon for pictures of mexico and for progress reports on the red's efforts to indoctrinate me. but mostly for the pictures.

home is where my habits have a habitat

i have now officially, completely, and as permanently as can be expected (given the temporary nature of my chicago stay) moved into the apartment which from this point forward i will refer to as my apartment. this triumphant return to chicago will, i hope, coincide with the end of this awkward blog silence and is now going to be kicked off with a photographic tour of my room, furnished as it is with a smattering of belongings most accurately summarized as "stuff".

we begin our tour with probably my greatest wood-working achievement ever (it wasn't just a weird coincidence that we never had shop class at the same time in high school--i was probably in choir that period or something). while i was home this weekend my dad and i made these 6 open faced cubes for my records. they might look a lot like what you've been calling "crates", but given the amount of energy expelled in making them, and making them actually uniform and actually cube-like (and not trapezoid-like), i feel like open faced cubes is a much more prestige-appropriate title. note also my brilliant use of suitcase as speaker stand and my freakishly tall bed. i'm actually putting in a bid to host the 2018 summer games entirely under my bed. that's how much space there is down there.

moving your head slightly to the right, you begin to suspect that nearly all the space in my car was devoted to musical things. and you are right. (we feel the musical culture surrounding the underbed area will be a huge draw for the IOC.) also, i'd like to thank, from left to right, sarah, betsy, and jordan for these excellent wall-hangings which, in a pinch, have also served as very capable articles of clothing, especially in cold weather. thanks, guys!

snap that head back to the left, and you see the epcot center-like covering of the olympics complex. my grandma made that for me. my grandma is way more hip to geometry than your grandma.





this last picture is pretty much just here for completeness, so you can have seen the fourth wall. there's a closet, a mirror that the former inhabitant left me (probably as a hint about my grooming skills) and a door, which i think is probably one of the most underrated, least appreciated parts of any room. because either you use that or you have to dive in and out of the windows to go anywhere.

baila, guapa

in addition to black history month, the chinese and korean new years, groundhog day, family day, and darwin day, in chicago february is also host to the chicago flamenco festival, a month-long celebration of the spanish music and dance form, with various performances given throughout the city. i am by no means a flamenco afficionado, but i just totally love watching and listening to it. the music and dancing is at once delicate and aggressive, the movement is fluid and also abrupt, and the wrists are just...enchanting! this saturday was the final performance, and i thought it'd be fun to go. unfortunately, so did a lot of other people who presumably had heard about the event before i'd even arrived in town, and they got all the tickets.

i really wanted to go, so i told my new friend kim about this dilemma, and she said she figured we could get in. we made some calls and planned our possible points of entry. the first move was to arrive early to the show, when ticketless potential patrons would be given a number based on their arrival, which would then determine the order in which returned or cancelled tickets were distributed. so we got to the front of that line, and while we waited kim reviewed our other options. we'd both come dressed as ushers in the event that more were needed, and kim had brought black tux jackets so that we could dress up as caterers and walk past the ticket takers in that capacity. (this is a ruse kim has successfully pulled off before, and is both one of many things that has made getting to know her a real adventure and the main reason i think she is a direct descendant of macguyver. also, i think she might be crazy.)

it was a very stormy and snowy night, so several tickets were returned and as kim and i were first in line, we had no trouble getting in after all. the show was quite enjoyable, and afterwards we went to a reception where was served tapas and sangría. the wine, the bocadillos, and the spanish accents flying around the room transported me back to ehspain, and overall i had a really great night. kim did, too, although i expect she would have preferred to have gotten in in some way that required a grappling hook and made less use of the front door.

faq chicago

q: so, you're out in chicago now. what part of the city are you in?
a: right now i live in lakeview, which is on the north side. but in a couple weeks i'll be moving to an apartment in humboldt park.

q: oh. i don't know where that is. should i probably come to chicago and check it out?
a: yeah, you probably should.

q: ok, cool. i think i will! so...how are things over there? keeping busy?
a: things are pretty great. i'm kind of busy, but not in a working all the time kind of way. my job is pretty flexible (a friend here says i don't have a day job. but she also says i'm going bald, so what does she know?), so i've been filling my time with a few of chicago's exciting areas--the museums, the restaurants, the places where homeless people pee, and so on.

q: oh. i see. what IS your job, anyway?
a: i work as a medical interpreter, which means i go to appointments and speak in english and spanish between a doc and a patient. it's pretty cool.

q: really? because it sounds boring.
a: oh, no way! i really like it. like last week i interpreted for a birth, which was awesome. and i get to see lots of different kinds of medicine and imagine myself doing them and decide if i'd like it, which is kind of like shopping for clothing, if you were going to only wear one suit for the rest of your life.

q: i have a sinking feeling you're about to tell another gross story involving bloody or detached body parts. let's change the subject before i start to wish i hadn't eaten such a heavy lunch. so what hospital do you work at? the one from ER? have you seen george clooney there? PLEASE give him my phone number! he's soooooo cute!!!
a: i'm actually not employed by a hospital or health clinic. in fact, i'm technically not employed by anyone--i'm an independent contractor. i work with an agency that finds interpreters for places that need them, so i work all over and around the city. this is in some ways a pain, but it's also been fun and a great way to see lots of the city. if i see george clooney i'll send him your love, but to be honest i'd always imagined the person behind the "q" was a man. weird.

q: well, i mean, it's not like i LOVE him. i just said he was cute. and that's all. so, uh...what else do you do when you're not at work?
a: well, i've found an incredible and interesting group of friends here who i have really enjoyed getting to know and hanging out with. and they know so much about chicago--i'm finding out all the great places to go, the cheap or free ways to see the city, and where to go for good falafel.

q: so you've been in one place for a month and a half--got any big plans to leave the country?
a: as a matter of fact, i do! in march i'm going with my lincoln church to mexico for a medical missions trip. i'll be interpreting over there and hopefully perfecting the triage system i tried out last time i did this trip, two years ago. i'm very excited to go back and to learn and see what i can while i'm there.

q: haha, i was kidding when i asked. you travel too much. you suck. but hey, weren't you planning on coming back to lincoln to get your stuff?
a: hey, what did i tell you about that kind of language?!? yes, i am coming back to get my stuff. i ended up waiting a little longer than i thought i would, which has meant that i wear the same pair of pants to every job i have, and one of two sweaters. it's easier to live out of a suitcase when you're on the move and nobody sees you twice, but i think some people in various medical clinics in chicago are beginning to think folks from nebraska can only afford one set of "dress-up" clothes. we're a simple folk. anyway, i'll be back in lincoln for the second half of next week. give me a call and we'll see if we can't hang out a little. it'd be fun!

q: i guess i might. it sounds like things are going really well for you. are you surprised?
a: to be honest, i kind of am. when i was in ecuador i told an american doc about my plans to become an interpreter out here, and he told me i wouldn't be able to do it because i'm not a native speaker. at the time part of me thought this was likely more a reflection of his own inability to speak spanish effectively (gosh, he was pretty bad) than an indication of the feasibility of my plan, but it was also really discouraging to me--he said it like he knew what he was talking about, and that he was very definite about it. so this whole experience has been a really great lesson to me to just go after whatever it is i want, no matter what anyone says. i mean, no matter the odds or--

q: you're starting sound a little too much like one of those inspirational posters, man. that's really lame. i think i need to go.
a: oh, ok. well, maybe i'll see you in a couple weeks? when i'm back in town?

q: eh, whatever.
a: ok! i'll wait for your call!!!

border wars

last night the united states played mexico in soccer. the game was in phoenix, but whenever the us plays mexico along our southern border it's more like a home game for them. and we keep playing them down there because that way the stadium's full. it's a complicated issue, but the point is, the crowd was decidedly pro-mexico.

it was officially a friendly match, but as one fan's sign at the stadium pointed out, when it comes to these two sides "there are no friendlies". it's true. there's been bad blood between the teams for years, and since lately we've been the dominant side, things have gotten especially ugly. there's usually some elbows thrown, words exchanged, and...name-calling, too! and of course during the corner kicks, there was the requisite throwing of water cups at our players.

so there they all were, a crowd of 60,000-plus people, most of whom HATED the united states, and as i watched i couldn't help but think how nice it was to have so many people gathered together, hating our great nation just for our soccer, and irrespective of our politics and diplomacy.

oh, sport! i love you!

real news

the whole idea of this electronic webpage was, at inception, to inform interested parties of my doings. lately, though, i've been more into using my considerable talent for talking without actually saying anything. so i thought i'd give an actual update of my life rather than an off-kilter observation or a lenghty story about...nothing. so here goes:

on the work front, i've been training for this interpreting job, which has been boring but not as boring as the similar class i took in lincoln. training ends next week, but i got to start actually working early and i had my first paid jobs this week. i did all kinds of different appointments, and pretty much enjoyed the job as much as i thought i would--a lot. it's so fun to see ultrasounds or whatever healthcare situation they put me in. and it's a great challenge, and i am learning a lot, and it's just so interesting!

the second sunday i was here i went to the church one of my roommates attends. i enjoyed the sermon, and in the bulletin they had some information about an esl class the church does for free which was to start that very week. this combined three areas in which i am, if not an expert, at least pretty well-versed: teaching, working for free, and the english language. so obviously i signed up and started doing that right away. i really enjoy doing it, but more importantly, it allowed me to get to know a lot of people at the church, and i found much to my delight that they're really great people! already in the few weeks i've been out here i have people i can call and who call me for various fun times, and they're people i genuinely enjoy. i consider myself very blessed in this regard, and am just really happy out here--i can't imagine this first month going any better. i'm enjoying every minute out here, and i'm really looking forward to all the next months.

so that's my life lately. stay tuned for a zany story about the mishaps that befell me the other day when i tried to order a pizza.

the list!

countless hours of listening, head-scratching, sorting, writing, re-writing, and this is all you've got to show for it? (or a better question--are YOU really going to read all this?) my superfriends and i will soon join our powers for a composite list of 15 unquestionably awesome 2006 albums, but in the meantime here, in the great 5-year long tradition of musical nerdery of matt and i, are my favorite records of 2006. without further ado, the list:

10 Califone, Roots & Crowns

It’s probably mostly because I haven’t read much about this band or this album, but I can’t understand why this album isn’t more often (and favorably) compared to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like that album, Roots & Crowns sees Califone with one foot firmly planted in folk and dusty, brittle singer/songwriter stylistic traditions while bravely stepping off with the other foot into uncharted and experimental production values and sonic textures. Far from a spin-off of YHF, though, this album has its own sound, its own textures, and its own thematic concerns—its own identity. It’s hard to imagine the lazy horns of “Spiders House” and the electric energy of “A Chinese Actor” and the slow aching beauty of “The Orchids” appearing together on any album from this or any other year.

Highlights: Spiders House, A Chinese Actor, The Orchids

09 Peter Bjorn and John, Writer’s Block

I nearly missed this album. It didn’t immediately grab me, and I’d nearly tossed it aside when Aaron told me a favorite lyric from “Objects Of My Affection”: “And the question is was I more alive than I am now? / I happily had to disagree. / I laugh more often now, I cry more often now. / I am more me.” That seemed to me to be a pretty good lyric, and it was talking about a lot more depth and melancholy nostalgia than I’d heard on my first trips through the album. I went back and listened a little more closely, and I discovered that the entire album was written with the same sentiment, the same earnest reflection and depth, and a surprising wisdom. What I’d dismissed as a lack of content was actually evidence of great subtlety and restraint and brave writing and production. Suddenly the fancy percussion and whispery, reverb-drenched vocals were the finishing touches on perfect pop songs and not just interesting accoutrements attached to a collection of several intervals of four empty minutes, and suddenly I was hearing a really great, smartly written, and expertly produced pop record so subtle I nearly missed it altogether.

Highlights: Objects Of My Affection, Young Folks, Amsterdam

08 Ratatat, Classics

On their second album, Ratatat broaden their scope, widen their sound, and make another fantastic record of hip-hop tinged beats and stadium-sized near-metal hooks. This album has a few more mid-tempo numbers on it, which is probably part of the reason it wasn’t as giddily received as the debut, but the slower songs here are better than the ones on Ratatat, and the jams this time are just as towering and danceable. The biggest difference between the two albums, though, is the layers and intricacy of Classics. Each song feels a bit more carefully planned (and perhaps unfortunately a bit less spontaneous), with a few more ideas packed into the corners, and develops a little more slowly. If this sounds like a bad thing check out the swirling guitars in “Lex” or the low-end moves in “Wildcat” or the funky shuffle in “Loud Pipes” and be assured that, although they’re "just" an instrumental band, Ratatat has enough ideas and willingness to experiment for more than one undeniably excellent album.

Highlights: Lex, Loud Pipes, Tacobel Canon

07 The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America

How does an album aping a musical icon I never really loved, celebrating a reckless adolescent existence I never lived nor wanted to live, and lifting lines from Steinbeck novels (for the title, no less!) get me to turn my stereo up too loud and jump around my bedroom working up a sweat on my air guitar? One word: RAWK. Marshalls stacked probably two stories high play classic rock riffs like it’s 1975, Craig Finn gets pretty close to actually singing a few times, and the band only slows up to catch its breath twice in the whole 40 minute onslaught (and the ballads are actually good enough that you don’t skip ahead to keep your heart rate up). If you can sit still during the bridge/breakdown of “Stuck Between Stations” or that awesome towering chorus on “Southtown Girls” you were probably complaining about “that awful noise” when Springsteen wrote the spiritual ancestors of these songs 30 years ago. And that almost makes you old enough to be dead, so maybe that’s why you’re not rocking out in your bedroom like me.

Highlights: Stuck Between Stations, Chips Ahoy!, Chillout Tent

06 Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped

When I heard Sonic Youth’s new album was going to be composed of shorter songs than their usual, I was worried they were going to sacrifice some element of their makeup that I really liked. For being a departure in their approach to songwriting, though, Rather Ripped sounds remarkably like a SY album. The shorter songs don’t result in less of the explosions of guitars that I’ve always loved—they’re simply more concentrated. The more traditional song structures give the songs a more compact, explosive feeling, like if you squeezed a million liters of hydrogen into a pop bottle and then threw a match on it. In place of the long drawn-out feedback sequences of previous records, here we have more focused and economical playing—each note feels more important, each crescendo more carefully placed and paced. And yet even in this context they still find space for moments of expansive beauty like the “why won’t you show me what’s inside?” post-chorus sigh in “The Neutral” without making it feel rushed or squeezed. It’s not Sonic Youth lite, it’s Sonic Youth dense.

Highlights: Do You Believe In Rapture?, Turquoise Boy, The Neutral

05 Band of Horses, Everything All the Time

Why do people say “that guy sounds like My Morning Jacket” like it’s a bad thing? Jim James or James Mercer hardly invented the style, and besides that, we should probably be thinking of singing like this as more of an ideal to strive for than an affectation to fake. And anyway this album’s success does not depend on the extent to which Ben Bridwell sounds like Mike Love or your favorite soulful brass-colored vocalist, but rather on whether or not the band brings it and if the lyrics and melody can support the emotional weight Bridwell instills in every note. In the slow-burning, crystalline opener, in the “I’m yours!” release of “Wicked Gil”, and in pretty much every syllable in “The Funeral”, the answer is a resounding, fist-pumping, exclamation point-laden yes. Yeah, this album sort of trails off on the back half, and maybe those acoustic ballads sound a bit like…those acoustic ballads, but this fact never stopped me from putting this on every time I wanted to hear something raw and powerful. Albums like this remind me that flashy ideas or even great playing skills are not requisite to making a great rock record—Band of Horses just play like they mean it and believe it, and I believe it, too.

Highlights: Our Swords, The Funeral, Great Salt Lake

04 Fujiya & Miyagi, Transparent Things

But they were just pretending to be Japanese! Not only is the sonic approach here relatively simple, it’s also been done before (a lot)—why do I flip out every time I hear it? Well, let’s see. There’s the head-tipping beats, the busy bass locking in the backbeat, the thin guitars skittering along on top, the occasionally non-sensical and scatter-brained lyrics coolly spoke-sung, and there’s the warm, warm synths, flawlessly placed in just the right amount in those big gaping holes of sound, like filling a nice sponge cake with a good cup of cream. Mmm…that’s a tasty sonic confection! But more than the individual ingredients, it’s the group’s grasp of the overall feel of their songs and their carefully layered builds and climaxes that send the album’s best moments straight through the stratosphere and into orbit, bringing me right along for the ride.

Highlights: Ankle Injuries, Transparent Things, Cylinders

03 Islands, Return to the Sea

Nick Diamonds returns to make another playground of sound in which to sing songs about love and death and demons and the end of the world. To say no one writes a pop song quite like him is to stake an early claim for the lead in your high school’s big production of “Captain Obvious: The Understatement” next year (break a leg, buddy!). I suppose I’m probably in the minority, but I like this work better than Unicorns—it’s still a little off-kilter, but the production is more advanced, the arrangements more accomplished, the songwriting at once more focused and just as playful. At times it seems the band set out to prove there’s nothing they can’t pull off: creepy spooky hip-hop song? “Where There’s A Will There’s A Whale-Bone”. Sunny Graceland “doo doo doo doo” sing-along moments? “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”. Synth-pop freakout with solid gold payoff closing verse? “Rough Gem”, anyone? I could go on, but suffice it to say there isn’t a misstep on the whole album—this is a perfect collection of imperfect pop songs.

Highlights: Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby, Rough Gem, Jogging Gorgeous Summer

02 Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case’s voice is so velvety smooth and powerfully sexy, so smoky and sultry, so volatile and versatile that President Bush actually considered asking her to sing his State of the Union address this year so it would be more positively received. (He changed his mind when he found out she’s Canadian. That’s the last thing America needs!) While it’s probably true that Case’s voice could save even a terrible song from hard drive deletion (is there a more ignominious fate for 4 MB of music in this day and age?), the songs here are haunting stories of death at the mouths of wolves and dirty oil pans, of dead loves or lost loves (and fingers), of crazy gospel characters and the apocolypse. They are in other words the perfect setting for Case’s considerable vocal mastery and uncanny knack for subtle expression. The instruments know exactly how to behave, giving the perfect touch of tension (and terror!) to lines like “and the blood runs crazy / with a giant’s strides / and the woodsman failed to breach those fangs in time / so they dragged him through the underbrush / wearing three winter coats and a dirty knife”. If Bush doesn’t change his mind maybe she should look into singing Jack London stories.

Highlights: Margaret vs. Pauline, John Saw That Number, The Needle Has Landed

01 TV On The Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

Allow me to dispense with all the superlatives for just a second. This album is my favorite of the year because from the busted brass horn samples of “I Was A Lover” until the freak-out fuzz bass dies out in “Wash the Day Away”, it just doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve ever heard before. It’s not like they invented a new genre in the quest to sound unique—this is rock and roll, but twisted up, turned inside out, stretched, squeezed, and cranked to 11. Tunde Adebimpe’s voice and harmonies, as on previous records, are their own incredible entity, capable of carrying conviction, creepiness, and an overwhelming sense of urgency at the same time. Dave Sitek’s production and waves of guitar noise are nearly impenetrable, and the rhythm section has so many rhythms and ideas happening it sounds like they recorded two trap sets, each manned by cloned vishnus. And sonically the album is all over the map—the open, soaring harmonies of “Blues From Down Here”, the driving 4/4 rock of “Wolf Like Me”, the handclaps and garbage can percussion of “A Method”…and so on. Since the very first listen, this album has continued to captivate and enthrall me, providing equal measures of close-eyed cerebral challenge and fist-pumping visceral pleasure.

Highlights: Wolf Like Me, A Method, Blues From Down Here

across the sea

some of my very best friends live in places very far away from here, so far away you have to cross borders or oceans (or both) to get to them. mostly, this is a pretty bad deal. i haven't seen my very good friend sarah, for example, in more than a year, and since she lives in japan, we don't get to talk very often, either. and when we do talk, it's the end of my day and the beginning of hers, which is just weird--you learn to make it work, but you never really get used to the weirdness of nearly falling asleep while talking to someone who just started her morning work (in this case, teaching english to japanese kids).

but it's not an entirely bad deal. in addition to hearing some fascinating tidbits about japanese culture and japanese elementary school culture, i often get some pretty entertaining excerpts of english according to 5th graders in japan. and as an added bonus, sarah and i have been sending packages to each other in our respective locations (crossing two oceans, including three continents unless i've forgotten one) for the last three years. these two vibrant, wonderful traditions recently came together in a package wishing me a happy thanksgiving, christmas, and easter. included was the work of one young girl, in response to a cultural education project in which the students learned about the american custom of the new year's resolution, and then made their own. what will YOU improve this year?

foiled! by the salt!

these are the steps to my apartment. that's salt that they put down a week ago. ALL of it. is SALT! if the city undergoes a slug uprising, they're not getting in here. at least, not through the front door. which is a really comforting thought. take that, slugs!!!

the christmas tree epic

the people i'm staying with here in chicago did not know me before i showed up at their door with a suitcase and pillow in hand like a blind slumber party play date or something. they agreed to do this in part because of a pretty tenuous friend of a friend of a friend connection (although it turns out we also have a mutual friend, just one degree of separation apart), but mostly they let me in because they're nice people, and i needed a hand. so they did me a favor, and i am thus in some way indebted to them. due to this and the fact that now instead of having a living room they have a third bedroom, i often try to find way to help out around the house. this has included things like cleaning the kitchen or doing their dishes on various occasions, but the biggest chore that's needed done since i got here was disposing of the christmas tree.

so i did some investigating, and it turns out the day before i got to chicago there was a city-wide tree recycling effort, and all that needed to be done that day was carry the tree to the alley, and it would be collected and taken care of. for the week after that day, you could carry it to a tree recycling pick-up location. i looked around and found that the nearest one was about 2 miles away. and i asked myself, "how do you transport an 8 foot tree 2 miles in a big city if you don't have rope or anything other than your suitcase and your pillow?" i imagined larry david manually carrying a christmas tree down busy streets, shouting at the people who gave him particularly nasty looks, and thought that would a pretty funny episode of curb your enthusiasm. all i had to do was carry it, then, and i had a ready-made funny story to tell on future blind dates or in awkward moments after saying something offensive. so i bundled up, got my keys, and walked over to the tree. i picked it up by its unwieldy trunk, shifted my weight as if to make a step toward the door, and laughed at myself for being so ridiculous--this was not going to work. i informed my roommates they had until the end of the week to take it and offered to help, but said i couldn't do it on my own.

the week came and went, and the tree stayed put in a shared unfinished stairwell in the back of our apartment. my drive to be in some way useful was great, however, so i proceeded with plan b. i went to the hardware store and purchased a saw to cut the thing into tiny pieces and throw it away. i started into my work with great enthusiasm, gleefully chopping the tree into manageable pieces. it didn't take long until i'd gotten pretty warm, despite the fact that the stairwell was maybe 20 degrees warmer than the freezing air outside. so i took off my jacket and sweatshirt, placed them inside the apartment, and closed the door. the door that locks! the door that only unlocks with the keys in my jacket! the jacket that was now on the other side of the door! i realized what i'd done about 2 seconds after i did it, and tried the doorknob in case i'd unlocked it from the inside, but it wouldn't turn. i sighed and went back to cutting.

while i finished the job i considered my options. it would be several hours before a roommate came home, and i was at this point wearing a t-shirt. i didn't see as i had any option but to reveal my thoughtlessness to my upstairs neighbors, whom i'd never met before. i shuffled up the stairs and knocked on their back door. they had no way to help me, but they did know the landlord's number, so i called him and told him, too, that i am an idiot, and he told me that he, also, couldn't do anything. so i had to wait, which is where i was before, but now i'd also made a few new friends over "hi, i'm an airhead. lol!". i borrowed my new friends' broom and cleaned up the mess, and then i paced around the stairwell trying to think of something to do for the next long hours (why couldn't i at least have taken my ipod out of my jacket?!?). after some time, pacing and looking through the window at my jacket grew tiresome, so i sat down on the step outside the door i so desperately wanted to open. i thought once again how simply this might have been avoided, and, exasperated, i slumped back, leaning on the door and then falling backwards when the door opened, because i hadn't pulled it all the way shut. (lol!)

so i took the broom back, thanked the neighbors for their concern, told them i'd picked the lock using the super awesome secret spy skills i'd learned when i worked for the cia (now that's what i call saving face!), and went inside. later, after i'd grown confident about the workings of doors and door locks, i trudged out into the snow to the throw the tree pieces away. the biggest bag wouldn't fit in the dumpster, though, so i had to wrestle it in there, and when i did, the lid came down directly on my nose, causing the attractive blood coloration you see above. "dadgummit!" i (probably) exclaimed, and did a little "that hurts!" dance, imagining that probably every apartment window in the alley had people watching the christmas tree get the last laugh on me.

later that night...
"jeremy, did you get rid of the tree?"
"yeah."
"oh. thanks."
"no problem."

...no problem.

there'll even be a band.

after a long 8 hour day of training yesterday, i called my friend mitchell, who was in town for the day. we had a pretty exciting plan for the evening--grab a bite to eat, and then go see andrew bird playing a hometown, sold-out, small venue show featuring new material from the album he was about to go on tour to support. there was just one problem, though: we didn't have tickets. so our getting in would require a little extra work.

our first move was to head down to the venue a few hours early and see what might develop. we took the train and then walked to the address and found ourselves in what pretty much seemed to be a shipping yard. mitchell and i began to wonder if perhaps andrew bird was part of an elaborate crime front, and there wasn't really going to be a concert. finally, though, we found the venue, and decided to walk around back to see if anything was happening back there. sure enough, we could hear the sound check through the back door, which had been left open juuuuust a crack. mitchell and i looked at each other, and then headed in. one exploratory turn inside the building found us a foot from the stage and the band, much to our delighted surprise. they looked at us and then went back to work, so we sort of stupidly stood still, staring like dumbfounded cows. this would have been a good time to come up with a plan for the next move, but instead we just watched. so when the sound guy came and asked us what we were doing, all i could manage was a weak mumble about not having tickets and maybe we could watch the soundcheck. sound guy said that'd be up to mr. bird, who made just enough of a motion with his head to indicate that he in fact heard this statement, but without visibly responding in any way to show support or opposition to the idea. so sound guy escorted us out.

as we walked back to the front, we met the bouncer and chatted him up, doing what the corporate (or myspace people) call "networking". as mitchell and i walked away from the venue and talked about various things we might have done or things we might have said and wondered what, exactly, is the etiquette for offering bribes to bouncers. we got some food and decided to go back and try our luck with the bouncer again. at this point i elected mitchell captain of the team on the grounds that i could drive to see the show in indianapolis so i wasn't as invested as him (but secretly because i fear confrontation). we headed back hoping to find the bouncer, but instead met jessica, who booked the show and who told us there was no way we were getting in without a ticket. when mitchell insinuated that perhaps some financial resources might change the situation, jessica responded that if she was even a little bit unethical, she could have received all kinds of favors in exchange for entry to the show. i asked if there was someone more unethical we might talk to, but she said they were all ethical in there. so we started to leave again, but this time we saw our friend the bouncer through the window and waved at him. he smiled and waved (this big black bouncer guy, smiling and waving at us!) and came out. "have you talked to those two?" he asked jessica, but old jessica just would not back down, so we left again.

this time we regrouped in the lumber section at the nearby home depot instead of over italian beef sandwiches in lincoln park, and we decided that if we came back after the doors had opened we might just see the bouncer, who we felt was pulling for us in this matter. so we killed some time, and came back to the venue. the doors were opened, but no one was waiting outside, so we shuffled up to the front door and went in, where the bouncer was waiting to check IDs. he said it was up to jessica, so he called her over again, and mitchell, pulling out our very last unused trump card, said, "here's the deal. we came all the way from nebraska, and we saw that it was sold out, but we thought..." "you did not come from nebraska! show me your driver's licenses!" jessica exclaimed, sort of smiling (it's good to have good-looking friends!), and i knew we were in. we produced our proof of residence (GO 'SKERS!!!), and she asked us how many times we'd seen andrew before, and where. and then she let us in, and mitchell and i paid and got our hands stamped and then found a place to hide in case they changed their mind.

(i'm sure some of you are thinking that technically i didn't come from nebraska to see the show, but like lots of people have probably said at various times throughout history, don't let the facts get in the way of a good scam. so let's leave it at that, eh?)

and then, there was the show. everyone, go see andrew bird if you can--it's an incredible experience, and andrew bird is a rare phenomenon: a gifted songwriter AND a virtuoso performer. he must have played 10 songs from his new album, which i can very confidently say will be AMAZING. and if you don't believe me, ask mitchell. it was really good.

the apartment people

wiki tells me that chicago has over 9 million people if you count all the suburbs and the small communities that have been gobbled up by expansion. that's a lot of people, but i think it's going to work out because in my week here so far i've come to find out that they also have about 2 million apartments available. so everyone has a place to live. in an attempt to make some sense of all those options, i went to the apartment people, which is a company that helps you find apartments for free. i filled out some papers ("i don't care where or how i live, just make it cheap!") and then i met with the guy who would be my companion for the rest of the day, who we'll call dave. dave took me to his trashed out, cigarette-smelling car and we were off. after we started driving he asked if it'd be alright if he smoked while he drove, and explained he'd had a "weird morning". i said that'd be fine, thinking the cigarette smoke would be the only relic of his morning to which i'd be exposed.

but then, as we were looking at the first apartment, he said he wanted my opinion on something as a third party, and that if it was too weird, i should say so. i imagined he was going to ask me what i thought of the landlord's (admittedly unique) odor, so i agreed, but then as we got into the car to look at apartment number two, he laid it on me. apparently, dave has been living with his girlfriend for the past 9 months, and they're planning on getting married in the fall. for whatever reason, dave decided to in some way use his email or her email to obtain her myspace password (!), which he then used to break into her account (!) and read correspondence between her and her ex-fiancee (!). and she is not very kind about dave when she's talking to her ex-fiancee. in fact, she says some pretty mean things about him, including that she wants to leave him. (the stressful morning, it turns out, had been dave doing all of this internet sleuthery.) dave tells me she's been a liar for quite some time, including for example when she hangs out with her ex-boyfriend and says she has to go because she's on the greyhound bus. oh, dave. after telling me all of this, dave tells me his dilemma is if he confronts her about the myspace messages (and you think he's going to say "i'll have to admit i'm a creepy stalker boyfriend", but...nope), he'll just have to believe her, and he obviously (OBVIOUSLY!) won't be able to read her myspace messages anymore (!!!). so does he confront her about it, or does he just pretend he doesn't know and leave things the way they are?

i was trying to formulate a logical, simple response, but most of my brain was occupied with praying that either my face was showing absolutely no clues as to what i was thinking or that he didn't take his eyes off the road for one tiny second to look at me. i finally managed to say "yeah, that's a toughie. um...have you considered just breaking up with her?" without adding anything about the creepy boyfriend problem or the possibility that maybe he should wait until he's 40 before trying to be involved in a romantic relationship again. he didn't think breaking up with her was a good idea, even when i suggested that it was likely she would soon leave him regardless ("no, when we talk she tells me we're great," he countered). we left the situation unresolved, so i guess i'll never know what will happen to dave.

and that's why i'm taking "try to be more open with other people about your life and your emotions" right off the new year's resolution list.

architectural marvels, modern and medieval

only 4 months after i'd originally planned to arrive, i am writing this update from chicago. i got back from cancun saturday afternoon and then left for chicago sunday morning, and monday was my first day of training at my job. i currently live on a couch on the north side, and if i want to i will move into the tiny bedroom soon to be evacuated by one of the two guys who live in the apartment which houses the couch. this apartment, and this neighborhood, and all that business is really nice, probably significantly better than i need to live comfortably, so for this first week or so i'll also be looking for other options that are more of a dive and are a bit cheaper. you know how i roll. or walk, as the case may be. being here for more than a weekend and seeing things from the perspective of "i live here" is pretty great overall, and i'm pretty excited to see what's next. it's another new deal, another inertia reset, another place in which to figure out which direction is north (almost always a challenge for me). i'm exploring, uncertain about most of the details most people know before they move, and therefore basically happy.

there'll be more to say about chicago (and me in chicago, of course!) but for today let's have a look at some pictures of mexico.

this is the big pyramid at chichen-itza ("chicken pizza" to my family). it's pretty big--those figures at the base are actually not upright-walking ants, they're people. it's also really old and full of historical and sacred religious significance, but to be honest, i sort of wasn't listening to our tour guide. so i'm not really sure what any of that would be. except i can definitely say the mayans built and used this building.

when i wasn't ignoring informative guides in ancient archeological sites, this was the kind of scene i was taking in. the resort we stayed in was about 45 minutes south of cancun, and about 10 minutes north of playa del carmen, whose street and beach view is currently making you jealous of me. it's not digital trickery--the sky really was that blue, the water that clear and bright, and the americans that plentiful and amply sized.

just in case the mayan riviera wasn't exciting enough, jordan and her family came down and stayed at a place a few miles (quite a few along the beach if you're walking there, by the way) from my place, so we hung out down there quite a bit. idyllic moonlit beach walks are better with a friend than alone sometimes even if you're like me and often enjoy the peaceful solitude. so it was a good time. plus we had fun taking pictures in the middle of the night. here jordan perfects her scary kung-fu face and poses. i'll let you in on a secret, though--it's all show, and you can probably take her. look how unimpressed i am.

so that was last week. this week has been pretty interesting, and don't even get me started on next week--probably i'll still be in this country, but who knows what developments will have developed!

been a bad blogger

i suppose it's time for a long overdue update. most recently, yesterday was my last day at my job here in lincoln, and i was pretty sad to leave. working there has been a very challenging and rewarding experience, and i feel like the clinic and i both benefitted from the interaction. i really enjoyed the staff there and will miss them, and really i'll miss the patients as well. i'm glad my first in-depth exposure to medicine here in the united states was from this perspective (which is to say, the low-income community health center), as i believe i learned a lot of valuable things about what life is like for a growing number of people in our country, and i don't want to be in the career i'm trying to get into without knowing about those people and their situation.

next, in about 30 minutes i'm heading to cancun, (fake) mexico for a week with my family. the day after i get back in town i'll drive out to chicago to start training for my new job out there. hopefully now that my life is going back to crazy i'll post more often to keep you all updated on the latest happenings and strangeness. in the meantime, it's off to the yucatan peninsula for me.

happy new year!

terror on the plains

the other day i was driving by the capitol and i imagined terrorists flying a plane into it. i thought that that would be a strange move for the terrorists to try to pull off, and probably it'd be really challenging, too--it's kind of a small target to hit. but then i started thinking about the reaction around the world. after the twin towers went down, there was sort of a general consensus that the best thing to do was to get on with things, to doggedly return to "life as usual". often it was said that to not do so would be to let the terrorists win, so everyone stoically went about their routines, trying very hard not to let on that they were troubled. so it seemed sort of funny to me to imagine the reaction to nebraska's capitol being attacked. after finding out that nebraska was not the name of a city in some state in the midwest, but was actually one of those midwestern states, people not from the midwest would then be faced with a very small tightrope on which to walk: they'd need to, as with 9/11, stoically return to the usual so the terrorists wouldn't win while also trying to seem troubled about the loss of property, government and (presumably) human life in a part of the country they couldn't find on a map. that'd be a real psychological conundrum. it'd be the same questions about when is it ok to continue with whatever aspect of life, but instead of people asking themselves, they'd be asking other people. it'd be very weirdly externalized.

i guess what i'm saying is, i don't see that the state capitol here is a good target for terrorists, but if they were more interested in social experiments than in whatever they do with their building exploding, we'd probably have a lot of fbi agents around the building all the time.

a top ten list.

it's my favorite time of year. december is upon us! the snow is falling, everyone smiles at you extra nice so you'll buy more stuff, and best of all, my friends and i make our top 10 albums of the year lists, which is an extremely laborious process that takes, well, basically an entire year to compile, discuss, argue, insult, and fastidiously and obsessively rearrange. so to warm up i am presenting a different top 10 list, of probably equal significance, import, and influence in world politics. i am speaking of course of my top 10 favorite t-shirts.

ah, the t-shirt. is there a more essential, versatile piece of wardrobe? they're like souvenirs as fashion statements, and since i don't really like fashion statements or souvenirs, i love them to their 100% cotton core because they do an excellent job of both things at once. without further ado, then, the ten most cared-for pieces of the one article of clothing i most carelessly wear.

at number 10 we have this number from my favorite lincoln record shop, spindle records. evan schmidt and i went to spindle's going out of business sale (it later came back to business, and arguably with cooler tshirts) intending to purchase a shirt along with all the on sale records, figuring they'd be pretty cheap. we found so much clearance vinyl i totally forgot about the shirts, but evan remembered at the cash register, and we each picked up a nice parting gift for something like $5. the design is half film reel and half 45 spacer, which is far from amazing but is sort of nice looking. plus, it's green and yellow. green and yellow has been screwed up maybe...once since they made the switch to color, and every other time it's been pretty much perfect.

up next we have this concert purchase from the summer. if you're a reader of this online publication (or if you know how to click the archive link) you already know some of what made that night so great, and the flaming lips and the night itself make the memory half of this shirt especially great. that night really truly was a memorably wonderful and happy night that served to lighten the heavy days that surrounded it. but touching sentimentality for summer shows aside, look at the thing! the colors! the design! wayne's hair! those hands! bonus points for the hands later showing up in the fall's gondry film, which can't really ever be a bad thing.

8: another concert relic, this one from explosions in the sky. this was another particularly inspiring show that reminds why you like music and why you pay so much to see it played live. explosions has great artwork for their albums, and their t-shirts are right on par with their best stuff. they had several really cool designs, and i think my friends and i all managed to pick up a different one. this one, though, was my favorite. the idea--a couple is lifted, floating, by their kiss, or by love--is great already, but i think the way their limbs are hanging, and especially the guy's tie, are what make this shirt really great. they're either weightless or they're defying gravity, and either one sounds pretty good to me.

when i was in spain, this t-shirt was a pretty reliable way to identify study abroad kids. as the palest, blondest, least hispanic-looking person in most of the places i went, the last thing i needed was more help outing myself as a tourist. plus i would have just felt like a tool wearing it around. i mean, EVERYBODY was doing it! so i didn't buy one. and then i got home, and i realized a pretty substantial fact: i was no longer in spain, and thus no longer studying abroad, and thus no longer a part of a very visual minority (whose majority i had sought to avoid). so i regretted not purchasing the famous osborne bull shirt, and when aaron went to spain for the second time this year, i made sure not to make the same mistake twice, and i asked him to bring me one home. as far as the article itself, it's a classic. look at that anatomically correct bull, standing so proud and defiant! and the red...it is (quint)essentially and (arche)typically spanish, which is obviously a good thing. obviously!

andrew lawton and i spent 48 minutes together every day just after lunch experiencing some of the most profound and intense moments of boredom and frustration we will probably ever suffer through while "learning" about our great nation. as a sort of escape from a pretty miserable pedagogical nightmare, we imagined what life would be like for the first US astronauts to live on the mir space station. this led to the invention of two russian cosmonauts, yuri and dmitry, who were a strange combination of the ambiguously gay duo, hanz and franz from saturday night live, and....come to think of it, the borat character, who at that time had not yet been invented. in character, we complained about "ze american peeg dohgs" and their horrible capitalistic system of commerce. andrew went away for college, but made second semester of my freshman year just a little bit better by coming home that winter and bringing with him matching shirts, one with "yuri" on the back and the other with "mitya". it was like team communism had jerseys or something--i was elated. my enthusiasm for actually wearing this shirt diminished when i realized my parents and other people their age probably were not going to stop looking at me like some kind of subversive (slash terrorist) when i wore it, but i still think it's a great t-shirt.

a good deal of my fondness for this shirt (#5, if you're keeping track) stems from a probably embarrassing pride of the performance it commemorates, which was my high school's one-act my senior year. but we really did something that year, man! we, like, really took on a challenging piece, and made an important statement! and so on. as great as it was to have my name so near arthur miller's (on the back, which is how these shirts always go), though, the action on this shirt takes place up front. the fallen tree plays a pretty pivotal role in the story, and my friend mike bartsch had this in mind when he designed the shirt. he drew the broken, sideways tree and wrote "all my sons" in a typewriter kind of font. it was a very minimalistic design and i thought it was very worthy of the whole thing (no small endorsement considering my total lack of perspective on the matter). but a funny thing happened on the way to the silk-screen company. a fellow classmate decided there should be no broken tree without there being a stump from whence it came, so she took the liberty of adding it right into the designer's drawing, without even asking him or anything. and the silk screen company or someone else decided to just lift the drawing and type the words in using one of those fonts your computer has but you never actually thought you'd see used. for a long time the first thing i did when i got the shirt out of the dryer was reapply a generous dose of sharpie to the trunk, trying in vain to darken it out into oblivion. it didn't work, as you can see.

here's another shirt i wished i'd bought in spain when i got home. this one, though, i'd looked all over for and never found just as i wanted it. i could never find a shirt with the seal and the name all written out like a college shirt, like this one. and what university shirts i did find i never found in my beloved heather grey color, which is pretty obviously the best color for a t-shirt. fortunately for me, my friend sarah (whom i'd met over there) and i had by the time she got home from spain established a pretty good tradition of sending each other packages in the mail, and when she found that the shirt she got for her dad was too small, she did what any good friend would do and sent it my way. if when people say "it's the thought that counts" they mean that sarah thinking of me when she bought the shirt would have been the most important part of the gift, those people are totally wrong. this shirt is super great, and it's from spain, and it says "i've been to spain!". when i wear this shirt, i don't even have to try to be a unique person, my shirt advertises my special person traits to the world at large all on its own.

probably the greatest rock and roll road trip i've ever taken was the time adam nun and i went to see sigur ros in minneapolis on their agaetis byrjun tour...without tickets. to make a story i've often enjoyed making very long quite a bit shorter, we showed up early at the venue, spotted jonsi outside, met him, talked with him, got on the guest list, and then ran around minneapolis for no apparent reason in a fit of unbridled joy and stupidity for a few hours until the doors opened. we called aaron chambers in our fit of excitement and delirium, and he asked us to get him a shirt, and then the three of us all ended up with one of these shirts, which does a great job of sticking to the artwork of an album that is one of my all-time favorites. plus, it looks so good with kakhi shorts, and it's dark enough that it doesn't show pit stains too bad. it's an all-around summertime winner.

the other day i wore this shirt and i remarked to aaron that at this point it looks like the t-shirt the world's first sunny day real estate fan EVER would wear. this was one of the first band shirts i ever had, which is funny because of it's iron-transfer origins--it's totally the first rock shirt for a former homeschooled kid. i like this shirt because i made it myself, and i like the album, and i like the album art. i don't reckon i have a lot to say about this one, other than that i've probably worn it about a thousand times and it wore really well, all faded and with modestly sized holes spread randomly throughout. it's a classic.

this shirt is my goldenboy. except i don't have the heart to finish it off, so now it just sits in my dresser, unworn for fear that those last strands will finally fall apart and my favorite shirt will die. there's a certain kind of hipster who would buy this shirt in a thrift store, and if someone would ask him if he actually went on a cruise in 1992 would say "psh, no!", making clear his disdain for anyone with enough money to spend on that kind of thing. he might even mutter "stupid leisure class!" under his breath, just for good measure. so it's kind of funny that if someone asked me if i got this shirt at a thrift store i'd probably answer in some way that i would hope would show how much i dislike some of those ironic t-shirts, and some of those ironic t-shirt wearing hipsters. oh, the irony! anyway, i WAS crusin' in '92, and it was great fun for me. at the time, the shirt was too big for me, even too big for me to wear back in 92 when arsenio hall and mc hammer (and...vanilla ice?) had made wearing baggy things cool. but slowly and surely, my stature and the midwest's fashion sense moved toward each other until they converged and seemed to stand perfectly in place for all of my college years, which is to say, the best t-shirt wearing years.

so there it is, my top 10 t-shirts. or more accurately, a personal history in 10 t-shirts. now excuse me while i decide which are my favorite pairs of underwear for the next list.

it's pulling at your hands like a spiderweb, like a kite that isn't there

in a move very nearly as binding as eventually quitting my job or finding an apartment, i bought a chicago guidebook the other day. this is a pretty significant development in my life and almost certainly means that i have decided to take the newly (re-)offered job as an interpreter and move out there in january. the only complication right now is that i'm not convinced i'll make enough money to live on from just the interpreter job and am currently trying to decide if the thrills of a new city are worth the hassle of moving and finding a second job and all that noise. but i really don't think i have much of a say in the matter--where there is something new and challenging to try, there will i shortly be. it's a law of physics. of jeremy physics! (other jeremy laws include "every action has an unequal and exaggerated reaction" and "[jeremy's] body at rest will not be able to stay at rest".)

so at this point very little is hammered down (i just bought the book yesterday!), but suffice it to say, the beginnings of something happening are...happening, and that's probably reason enough to start up the old blog again. those of you who were never a particularly big fan of the live jeremy experience and liked me better in paragraph form are probably jumping up and down for joy right now. it's your lucky day!

updates and projections

my friend jordan has been frustrated by my lack of blogging lately, and has decided to ghost write for me. so here's my life according to her:

Dear diary,

Today I went to my interpreting class at Southeast community college. It was pretty fun. We had a break in the middle, because the class is super long. I got this really awesome burrito from a vending machine in the basement. It's super cool because it's a vending machine with frozen things, but dont worry becuz there is a microwave. I guess I'm learning stuff; the teacher has a masters and really knows her stuff! i wish that one day i could know as much as she does and help others to learn it too.

After class I'm gonna watch the the Nebraska game (GO BIG RED!--for those of you that don't live in nebraska, that's what we chant, because they wear red). I'll probably watch it with my mom. I hope she makes little smokies. they are really good. last time she added cheese to the barbecue sauce, and it was pretty good. but randy kept farting! EWWWWW!

well, guys, i hope you liked the update. sorry it took me a month. i've been spending a lot of time chatting and stuff. i'll post some pictures of my new haircut when i can get dad to show me how to use his digital camera.

okay, GO BIG RED! (now you know what that means! hey, maybe i am a teacher!).

that feeling you get when you do something good vs. that feeling you get when they pay you for doing anything at all.

it occurred to me the other day as i interpreted that probably i wasn't going to get the kind of comic source material i needed for my blog in this kind of work, no matter how much fun the people in those hospital tv shows looked like they were having. so i brought my resume to the clinic the next day and got as a job as a receptionist for the dental part of the health clinic--surely "the office" isn't exaggerating the kind of shenanigans and hijinks that happen. i'm hoping for some kind of complicated, unrequited love triangle scenario to slowly develop, although my not being engaged probably compromises the likelihood of that. but to counteract that i ordered a name sign that says "pam". but i'm not sure that's endeared me to the staff even a little bit. although everyone brightens up and laughs when they see me. that's got to count for something!

so then, to recap--i'll spend about half my time at the clinic working (FOR MONEY!!!) as a receptionist and the other half of the week interpreting as a volunteer. the clinic coordinator tells me she's going to try to get funding for an interpreter position so i don't leave, but i'm just not sure about that. it's so fun to explore! we'll see what happens.

they're coming to america

pilar (not her real name) has been here in the united states for about a year. she doesn't speak any english, and supports herself as a dishwasher at a restaurant in town. for several months now the pain and numbness that starts in her fingertips and continues almost to her shoulders has been getting progressively worse, and she came in to see the orthopedic specialist who sees patients at the people's health clinic once a week. the doctor recommended she have a fairly expensive test to see if she has carpal tunnel syndrome, so he asked the assistant to set up an appointment at a neurology clinic. the clinics she called didn't mind that she'll need an interpreter, but the conversation ended when they found that she doesn't have a social security number (like many of the patients at people's health, and which can be an indicator of whether or not an immigrant is legal). so we didn't make the appoiintment for pilar and will try either another clinic or applying a bit of pressure to those clinics we've already called.

sometimes i think about what it would be like to be an immigrant here in the united states. i usually just imagine not knowing the language and think "that'd be hard". but at the clinic i see a mother with her crying, sick 3 month old and in her eyes i see fear and weariness and something like desperation. in this new place she has few options and nearly no support system. the baby has had trouble breathing since birth, she says, and i think about my brother and sister-in-law and how alarming the slightest new development of their newborn was at first, and how scary were the endless possibilities of death that that new life had brought them, and i try to imagine that uncertainty combined with this family's reality, their poverty, their isolation, their displacement. this isn't merely a difficult undertaking, it's monumental, with incredibly high stakes.

needless to say, it's been an interesting first week at the clinic.

the one where he laments forsaking his blog

you know that scene in wayne's world where everything's going wrong for wayne, and he starts complaining about what's got him down, and then the camera starts to walk off, and he apologizes and says "whoa! come back! i'm sorry for dumping on you!" and convinces the camera to come back? probably there's a mountain of life lessons to learn from wayne's world, but that moment seems particularly pertinent for my career as the world's best-loved and most successful blogger. accordingly, i thought of spicing up things in my life with a sitcom-style love triangle just for the sake of content and drama for the blog, but those affairs can be kind of expensive, and i remain unemployed. so instead, i have decided to turn to what has always been my employment strong suit: working for free. today i signed my confidentiality agreement papers at the people's health clinic (so i can't tell you who was in with a rare skin rash, but you probably don't know her anyway. and if you do, you'd probably rather not know. and for the record, i didn't actually see anyone with a rare skin rash...i am making up a story (my mom says they're "lies"...whatever.).) to be an interpreter over there. which is part of a bigger decision to actually be here while i'm here instead of constantly wondering when my job over yonder will start and so on. so be sure to check back soon for more made-up stories of rare skin rashes!

in between

what is between? how can one be "in" it? how do you get "in"? more importantly (or saliently, for me), how do you get out? i am definitely ready to be "out between" instead of "in between", which is where i currently reside, closer to chicago than south america, smack in lincoln, but also somehow nowhere at all. when are you leaving, why are you still here, what's the latest on chicago? these are all very good questions. i don't know, but what's even stranger is really i could leave at any second. like right now. or...now.

training for my job in chicago has been delayed due to some strange "extreme circumstances" involving the people who do the training, which i figured meant death by extreme sport injury until my hiring guy told me they got very sick, so i guess it's safe to assume they've been bitten by zombies out there--this could be awhile. instead of waiting for the rogue hero to save everyone by shooting off the zombies' heads with the last few shotgun shells (or beating them to death with a cricket bat, if you're a fan of the BEST zombie movie), i think i'm just going to go out there and find a second job. much like my quest for buying a new pair of sunglasses, though, the overwhelming number of options and possibilities has me a bit paralyzed. any second now i'll probably just close my eyes and point at the calendar. and then i'll leave. which is to say, this update is to say i don't know. but when i do, and i have things to say, this will probably be one place where i do say them. so stay tuned!

the next chapter

i may have intimated in my last post that being unemployed was great fun, especially when airlines send you checks for things they broke. but i was mostly trying to be funny--in reality, being unemployed and not knowing when or if you'll get a job is stressful, depressing, annoying, and just downright unsettling. which is why i am happy (elated, ecstatic, overjoyed) to report that today i got a call from cross-cultural interpreting services in chicago, wherein i was informed that my test scores (from the test i was pretty sure i failed) came in and i not only passed, but performed really quite well. so i have a job in chicago! (!!!) i start training on wednesday and will hopefully also find an apartment while i'm out there (i'll come back next weekend to play worship music for church) and then i'll begin the next adventure.

i took this picture after i took the test at the beginning of august. when i took it i was really discouraged because i didn't think i'd get in, and that added to other things to make me feel pretty uncertain about where my life would take me next. (i should point out my mom never really bought that i didn't do well on the test, and even managed not to say i told you so when i got the good news today.) but now, it's sort of a hooray picture--i get to visit another new city, i get to live in a new city (even if it's still in the united states, it's definitely something new and exciting and maybe just a little daunting), i got the job i most wanted to do (which pays well and will allow me to get hands-on medical experience AND is a job that will benefit people and help them be healthy)...it's a new set of challenges, a new opportunity to serve, a new opportunity to learn. it's another way to be alive!