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!

a wonderful awesome epic adventure

this weekend i went to council bluffs to see sonic youth and the flaming lips in concert, and i am happy to report that good things can happen even in iowa. if you ever go to a show with me and see me holding my face with my hands and beaming a 1.21 gigowatt smile stageward and trying to stare at all members of the band at once, you're probably seeing one of my favorite bands with me, and you're probably seeing me nearly as happy as i ever am. and if you had gone with me and aaron on friday, that's more or less what you would have seen, since sonic youth is probably my favorite band that's still making music today, and the flaming lips are both near the top of that list AND probably the most carnival-like live show i've ever seen, and a 5 year old at a carnaval is exactly what i felt like. so it was a very, very, very good night for me.

a few highlights beyond the ecstatic joy of being there:

thurston moore, who is about as old as my dad, looking like he could be my not much older brother, and rocking with the enthusiasm of a teenager.
sonic youth's legendary stack of guitars (mhat, you know what i'm talking about--but we were closer this time!).
candle, reena, pink steam
the drunk woman next to me who kept telling me "baby, you're hot--and i'm a lesbian!!!" (also popular: "you're BROOOOAD!")
aaron telling above enebriated and purported lesbian "hey, keep your hands off my boyfriend!" (thanks, aaron).
lesbian girl to aaron: "hey, it's ok, we're on the same team!" aaron: "no we're not."
wayne coyne "crowd surfing" in a big plastic ball like a giant hamster rockstar pre-show.
wayne coyne explaining why flaming lips fans are superior to other fans.
wayne coyne.
aaron's version of the 1.21 gigowatt smile.

in other great news, southwest airlines told me today they're sending me a check for the equivalent of the cost of replacing all the things i lost in the baggage debacle. it's like i used the stuff for 5 months, destroyed it, and found someone who would pay full price to buy it from me. this is so much better than having a job. i think i'm going to fly southwest again soon with some more expensive things when this money runs out.

like it's going to be your last day

if there was a musical spectrum of a birthday's overall feel, on one end would be the beatles' "birthday", and on the other would be andrew bird's "happy birthday song". my 25th birthday, which happened tuesday, was definitely toward the andrew bird end of the spectrum. in other words, more sad than glad. on my way to lunch i got a speeding ticket, which pretty much summarized how i felt the majority of the day. when i used the fact that it was my birthday as a plea for leniency, the cop not only continued to give me the ticket, he didn't even wish me happy birthday. "thanks for buckling up" he said as he walked away, and i said "happy birthday" under my breath in exactly the tone and timing i would have used to either swear or say something really clever and insulting about his stupid hat or sunglasses or...baldness if i wasn't feeling so defeated and wrongfully accused (which, to be honest, i wasn't).

but in addition to up to date proof of insurance and registration information (MIRACLE!), my glove compartment gave me one extra special birthday surprise. i bought probably the coolest sunglasses i've ever owned in spain back in the day. they were just like kurt cobain's glasses in my favorite nirvana picture ever (of which i have a very large poster, and i have really big plans to hang it...somewhere when i live in a place i have any expectation i'll be in for more than "one more week..."), and i felt about 37% more like a rock star wearing them. which until tuesday i hadn't done for a very long time because they were lost. but they're not any more--they were just behind the registration and that big jiffy lube envelope that they use to prove that no matter how far technology enters into our lives, the guy who changes your oil will still probably not be able to use a computer to remember if you've ever been there before. the fact that some poeple still pretend they don't know about computers and internets is probably really comforting to someone a lot older than me. which, come to think of it, is the first time i've felt young since feeling like 25 is a long way from 18 or 22. so hooray for birthdays after all!

...in its tell-tale time

time is a tricky, mercurial, and alternately treacherous and benevolent thing. you never know what it'll do when you're not looking, and you're never as unwatchful as when you leave. while your thoughts are elsewhere, some things you long for are changed, and when you look again they're lacking: the buffalo wings i'd been pining for in south america had me up all night with a kind of stomach pain you'd probably get if you fried a piece of the devil's tail in volcanic lava and ate it. after weathering 5 difficult months on opposite sides of the world when all either of us really wanted was the company of the other, janae and i decided we'd be better off as friends upon my return. or suddenly i don't seem to belong in the city i call home and it feels like a place i've been hanging around for too long.

but it's never all deception or all generosity, and no matter what alchemy or transformation it brought me this time, i've found that the acts of organizing, arranging, and listening to my records is every bit as wonderful, soothing, and delightful as i remembered it and had been hoping it would be. so thanks to everything on my shelf, from air to young mc (it was a used-bin nostalgia buy!), and to time, for never taking without also giving.

faq, home edition

q: hey, you're back! how was your trip?
a: good.

q: really?
a: well, really it was good and bad, fantastic and terrible, fascinating and boring, overwhelming and underwhelming, relaxing and stressful, and so on. but "how was your trip?" is like the average of all the questions one could ask about a trip, and "good" is more or less the average of the responses.

q: oh. so...you're back now, right? like, in lincoln? why were you in new york?
a: yeah, i just got in last night. i flew into new york to visit janae and betsy and to sort of look around the city a little. i saw the moma, i got my indian food and sushi and chipotle, i watched television, i took showers, i loitered in bookstores...it was great.

q: how was your flight?
a: it was ok for me, but my bag didn't do so well. it seems it was dragged for some distance on either cement or very coarse sand paper, completely incinerating my bag and my raincoat and my sunglasses, which incidentally are the three most expensive non-electric items i took with me while traveling. jeremy vs. southwest airlines will probably begin today or tomorrow, so stay tuned for updates. in the meantime, here's a shot of the jacket after i leant it to the terminator to wear while he tried to kill sarah connor.

q: where are you staying? can we hang out?
a: i'm living at my parents' house for now, out of boxes once again. actually, can we hang out is not a question i've been frequently asked. but the answer is yes--give me a call! my number is the same as it was.

q: is it good to be back?
a: hm. it has been my experience that the sadness of leaving is not equal in measure to the happiness of returning, and that the inequality tends to lean toward the harder truth. there's a hint of that this time, but overall i would also say that yes, it's been really great to be back. i really like my country.

q: are you being ironic or something?
a: no, not at all! i'm sort of in love with the usa right now.

q: oh, like since you just got back, sort of a honeymoon thing?
a: no, not like that. more like how a couple loves on their 50th anniversary. these are the quirks, these are the faults, these are the terrible wrongs in the past, these are the completely illogical tendencies that have driven us all crazy at one time or another. i know these things, and i love this country. it's not an idealized thing, i just like the way the country is and even in some ways the ways we're wrong because our greatness, our occasional stupidity, and even our atrocities are distinctly american.

q: mmm...patriotic civics lesson blog entries. always a hit. let's change the subject. what are your plans now that you're back?
a: what i would most like to do is get a job interpreting in a medical setting. on my way home from new york i stopped in chicago to test for a certification program that would allow me to work for a firm as a free-lance interpreter in chicago. i would use the independent work to live while looking for a full-time position at any of the hospitals and clinics in the area. this would be nearly ideal because i love the city and they have a large latino community--it'd be a great way to spend the next year, both gaining the experience and exploring a new city, two things i couldn't do staying in lincoln. but in my opinion i really bombed that test, so i'll probably be looking for a different firm in chicago. which means i don't know how the timeline will go. after that, hopefully next year at this time i'll be making sure i have a good enough bookbag for med school.

q: so does the fact that you're moving out where janae is mean anything particularly gossip-worthy about your relationship?
a: haha--no, not really. i really think i'd get sort of antsy staying in lincoln this year, and i am very mobile right now and chicago is a great option for reasons listed above. janae being out there is definitely a bonus, and i guess if you want to know "what it means" it means we like each other enough to try living in the same city for a little while--a strange idea for people who are dating, i know. i don't think it means anything in particular beyond this year, though.

q: darn, i like gossip better than simple logistics.
a: yeah, sorry about that.

q: well, as long as you're back safe. tell you what, why don't we get together and i can ask you some other questions i want to know about your trip.
a: i'd love to! give me a call!

gracias

trips like this don't just happen, and opportunities like this don't just materialize in the air and fall from the sky into laps. unfortunately. instead, they require a lot of work, sacrifice, and support from a group of people who in many cases haven't had the opportunity or anything like it. i am indebted to those people, and i wanted to say thank you:

to my parents, for support in more ways than can probably be imagined, enumerated, or named. for ignoring hugo chavez's latest psycotic ramblings about the undoing of america (or just not knowing about them), for sending money i never asked for, for emotional support before i left and while i was there, for never complaining about the infrequency of my calls and emails, for understanding or trying to always, for swallowing probably more than a few reservations and protests when i was telling them what i wanted to do and where i wanted to go and for how long...for all of this and undoubtedly lots more.

to mike hertzler and the elder board at faith bible church and the attenders of faith. when i asked mike to look into any possible opportunities for medical volunteer positions in south america, it was (in my mind) one of several different paths i might find to south america. it may have originally been that, but to be honest at this point i can't imagine having done it without him. almost immediately after asking him (especially in south american terms) we had a possible position with a hospital in ecuador, and thereafter mike made sure the preparations were on track, and always asked me how things were going and if he could help. mike was also the one who brought my "mission" to the elder board for possible financial support, which they agreed to give me, so thanks to those men as well for believing in what i wanted to do and supporting it, and for then bringing it to the congregation and giving all of them a chance to know about the happenings and help out in prayer or even just interest (when you ask my mom how i'm doing, she tells me you did, and it was good to know you cared). thank you.

to about a million people at hospital vozandes quito, including but not limited to karen, ximena, maira, evelyn, cecibel, piedad, soraya, drs. balesteros, vallejo, barros, kon, calerón, cueva, corral...hey look mom, it's an unending list of names! and tons more. for their friendship and help and patience and education and for making the whole experience much more than about medicine or even service.

to janae for coming down to see me (twice!) and putting up with all my wanderlust and still even wanting to be my girlfriend when i got back (hey hey!) and for phone calls and emails and packages and other things to remind me i was missed and hinting that if i were to come home immediately at least one person would be thrilled.

to all aim buddies everywhere (anyone i talked to on the internet in the last 5 months) for keeping up and keeping me up. especially so aaron and sarah (my traveling buddies forever) for sharing commiseration, understanding, and learning in a special way, and mhat for sending me little mpeg-layer 3 sound files of home.

to marmot mountainwear for making probably the single most indespensible piece of clothing i had on my trip, the superjacket.

to the people who came under my charge at vozandes, for teaching and giving and helping me much more than i was able to do for you.

to everyone who read my blog, and especially those who commented. knowing anyone was interested both made me feel good about the friends at home and helped motivate me to experience as much as possible while i could. thanks for listening--this has been fun, and it wouldn't have been the same without you all.

THANK YOU!!!

confirmed landing!

this is now the longest extended pictorial metaphor i have ever endeavored to...endeavor. (remember the endeavor space shuttle?) well, this picture isn't that shuttle. and i landed and john f. kennedy airport, not space center. but you get the idea. i have arrived safely in new york. but let me give you one more piece of advice. if you've been traveling in south ameria for a long time, you've probably gotten sick of watching your bags so closely all the time. you might think "hey, i'm in an airport now--i can relax about that!" you'd be wrong. if you are me, your being wrong means that several people's gifts went to some other opportunistic passenger on my flight to the united states of all that is good and great and wonderful and truly awesome in the world. that person would like to thank you all for your generosity.

i'll probably still update this for awhile because i like it when people are listening to me.