Small Town Wren

So Ravelry was having a big search party with prizes last week. And I actually won one of the prizes. Say what? I never win anything! I’m the big loser of my family, of my friends, of the universe!

So I’ve got a lot of knitting books and yarns coming my way soon. Which I’m pretty psyched about. Now just to figure out what to knit for who!

Saturday night was the Chicago L.A.T.E. Ride, which I am happy to report I biked in its entirety. 25 miles isn’t a long ride, but it’s now the longest I’ve done in a single day. My previous record was only 15. There were a few moments where it felt like I wasn’t going to make it, I did so with flying colors and only a few injuries, and only having birds shit upon me twice. Yeah, whut? I’m not sure why I was the particular moving target for all the birds, but I ended up with scat on me from all directions. Ugh.

I went with quite a few friends. We ended up all feasting on Silk afterward, a product endorsed enthusiastically by Howard and me. And the sunrise was absolutely gorgeous, if not a bit skewed by clouds. I’m glad that only Daniil saw me have the mos disgraceful dismount from a bicycle ever. I banged up my leg pretty well on my pedal. But hey, my bike is a beast. It’s apparently the heaviest bike ever and gets more momentum than anything on hills.

The eggs benedict afterward was amazing, even if Pick Me Up was strangely out of hollandaise sauce. The drive home was not so fun. Was starting to fall asleep in the end there. Bed couldn’t have come soon enough at 9:30 Sunday morning.

Forgive me, Father. It has been one month since we last spoke. I do not wish to relive that day, but I must, and I have.

A little boy died one month ago yesterday and I learned of it one month ago today. He was a small ray of sunshine in my last summer and during this school year. He made me smile often and he was among the small group of children who was there when I got to play the Tooth Fairy last year. He was a student in my friend Megan’s first grade class. She’s a great teacher; she was lucky to have him.

On the one month anniversary of his passing, I had the terrible displeasure of erasing him from the summer school database. I wiped him out of our 2010 records, and that hurt me greatly. Today, I wrote his parents a note warning of the cold, heartless refund they will be receiving from me shortly. I could not bare for that check to arrive, a shocking reminder of what they have lost–what we have all lost–without some kind words. A weak attempt to soften news that can only be hard and sharp.

I miss him. While it’s true that he was not the most present child in my life, he was still there. And his absence is still noticed. And it will continue to be noticed this entire summer when the classes he was registered for–likely only days before that terrible one–will go on without him.

He was seven and he died and no one can say why. A healthy, happy little boy went from playing and laughing in one moment, to being missing the next. It’s as though a cruel game of Hide and Seek was started, and where this sweet child hid is a place none of us can save him from. He just slipped away when no one and everyone was watching.

Forgive me, Father. I have erased him, though I did not want to. Forgive me. Our records are too simplistic to keep students not attending classes in them. Forgive me. I am the only one who maintains them, who knows how. Forgive me. It is cruel that I have gotten to live as I have when he will never grow up. Forgive me. Forgive me.

Forgive me.

Friday brought an exciting adventure to the city, despite my BFF ladydate cancelling on me. Always a tragedy. But all was remedied by the latest mainstage brought to you by the Neo-Futurists, CRISIS!: The Musical Game Show.

What a fun little adventure that was. While I was sad I didn’t make the cut to be a contestant, the whole evening proved to be excellent. If having eyes made at me by multiple cute girls is any indication to how the night went, well it be that! The winner of our night’s show was a very brave soul who spoke at some length about her experience as a transwoman, which of course prompted discussion among my male companions. I had to have a talking to them about how their “so brave and I support but ew ew ew” comments were not really supportive.

As sad as it is, I can’t really blame them. I know I still say really stupid and wrong things, and I’ve dated a transman and had a couple friends transition the other way. So for two heterosexual white males with no experience with the trans community, I guess I should be happy with what I got. Not that it makes it right, but it’s better than it could be. Also, I’m sure I said something else really stupid in this paragraph alone, which I sincerely apologize for and assure I meant no harm.

Back on track: Headed over to Rock Bottom with Michelle, Jeff, and Joe. I somehow wound up drinking three margaritas. This somehow lead to drinking wine until 7:30 in the morning at Michelle’s. None of us are sure when we decided this was a good idea. It was nice to see the sun rise; it’s been a long time for all of us.

Joe and I headed to Reggie’s to see his friend’s band, Under None, play, and to meet up with Kevin. This was a smashing success, led to some G&T’s and a SoCo Lime shot. However, my shirt broke. Yes. Broke. And suddenly my right boob was hanging out of my shirt (let’s all be thankful I was actually wearing underthings). This lead to lots of leering by creepy old dudes and yet another instance where I’ve had to pretend to be a male friend’s girlfriend to keep them off. Sigh.

The other instance being the previous night when some drunk dude in a dive so awesomely asked if I belonged to Joe with a pretty offensive gesture. Yeah, that’s a way to win girls over. I don’t care how drunk you are; that’s not okay. So yea, you bet your ass I belong to him in that moment. I belong to everyone except you.

I wanted to prove to my mother that I totally wore my life jacket at one point, so there’s no need to spazz. I also totally helped paddle that canoe.

Ken is clearly the more friendly of the two of us.

But I’m way cuter, even if I am wearing a hideous and cheap life preserver.

See! I totally helped.

Photos courtesy of Daniil the Russian.

Can we marvel at how much of a pimp I am in this picture?

I went canoeing from Ayers Landing with a whole bunch of folks yesterday. Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was dreary, but we all had a blast. I got to play Lazy Canoer by staying up front (which also meant I got the privilege of pushing branches out of the way when we went through some foliage.

We did twelve miles down the Fox with a stop for lunch and a (very) brief stop at a cave. Our group was about twenty, and we passed another group of twelve around Mile 6 who were extremely drunk. They kept trying to get us to drink beer with them, and while some of us obliged, most of us just wanted to paddle.

It was cold, but tons of fun. It’s been far too long since the last time I was on a boat of any kind (Staten Island Ferry not included).

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaszak.

Tony and I and a bunch of other people went to the Festival of Colors last Saturday, which was held in Knoch Knolls Park in Naperville. It was, how do you say? A pretty rocking time. Basically I got to spend an afternoon chasing little kids around trying to cover them in green and yellow flour. As you can see, I managed to get quite colorful myself.

The Festival of Colors is an Indian thing welcoming the coming of Spring. It was really amazing, punctuated by  delicious Indian food. It really made me wish that American culture had more active cultural festivals. Ours are far too passive. It seems that our culture is becoming more divided and making us feel more isolated. Sometimes all I want to do is reach out and touch somebody, make them acknowledge that I exist, and they exist, and we exist.

How is it that I feel most alive when I play on borrowed time?

Photos courtesy of Tony Thomas.

Need I say more? If only I could convince myself the extra $10 over a Bell Faction is truly worth it. Sigh.

You smoke two cigarettes. One to mark your sadness. The second is to solidify your anger. There are monsters out there who refuse to recognize their own wickedness. They will believe that niceties are all that is owed. This is, in fact, false. These trolls, who would believe themselves men, refuse to accept the atrocities they have committed, and so insulate themselves with sympathetic but uninformed ears. They will lie and steal if necessary.

It is this egocentric-ism that becomes offended by these words. They talk themselves into believing that such words are dishonorable because how could anyone dare speak so ill of them? They bury the knowledge that the pain does not come because the words are lies, but because they are actually truth. And it is in this way they continue on through their lives, acutely aware of their misery but still refusing to investigate the true source. Instead, they blame those around them as much as they can, absolving themselves of all responsibility.

This suffering is their penance. It follows them and will continue to follow them until, in some moment of revelation, they realize blaming external sources will never kill the monster in their hearts and minds. They will never become men of happiness until they make amends for the horror they have sewn. It is the rare breed who recognizes this, I’m afraid.

How you recognize such pathetic goblins is through observation of behavior. Sadly, this is the only way to identify them so it is hard to keep them out of your life until the damage is already done. It’s always a tragic realization when you come to know someone as a monster. They will treat you terribly and convince you that it is your fault. This wretched species is doomed to repeat the mistakes of their pasts until they acknowledge their own terribleness (you will recall this is a critical part of many 12 Step programs).  They wrap themselves in their selfish blankets and continue on in life wondering why happiness is always eluding them. They will blame you and do everything in their power to dismantle you.

You cannot let this happen. It is tempting to try and rehabilitate the monster on your own, but this is a therapy that will remain fruitless. This will, in fact, only provide them with more opportunity to destroy you. Often, the best and only thing you can do is cut contact. They will try to apologize furiously when they realize this is the course of your action. False apologies are not to be accepted. True apologies can be considered, but only if they have the critical element: What can I do to make it better? Anything that lacks an offer of amends can only be a continuation of the parasitical behavior. A monster can only help itself, and the only true marker of this stretch for change is the true and complete apology and a cease & desist of tyrannical behavior.

Okay, okay. I’ve run out excuses. I’ve been back in the country for a week and still have yet to post about my adventures. I’ve had a heck of a time recovering from all that travel and all the horrible things that happened. Namely, my passport disappearing, and then my camera getting stolen. Luckily I had most of my pictures off, but I still lost a bunch.

The picture of of my Spanish tutor, Herberth, me, and my sister’s instructor, Wilberth. I had such an amazing time in Spanish school, even if I technically only had three days of school. And I made a bunch of friends, including Herberth and Wilberth! And also Mikelle and Nikolaj, friends from Iowa and Denmark respectively. Sadly, their pictures were among those jacked with my camera.

The good news is that I have all of my pictures from the Aurora Zoo, the zoo in Guatemala City. My sister and I got to go with our hostel owner and his two-year-old son. This is good news because now you get to see the most excellent David Bowie impersonating rooster ever.

Need I say more?