The begining of the end

So, here it is. I've decided to record for myself, and maybe others if i ever make this non private, my thoughts on my last eight plus months of living in Chicago. I may never make this not private because who really gives a fuck what I have to say about this particular subject. I'm going to do this more to remember the reasons that I love Chicago and the reasons i need to leave it. I'm going to try to keep track of what I'm saving, what I'm doing, savor the end of this decade-long adventure.

I moved to Chicago in June of 1999, running from a boy under the pretense of getting a better photography education. By the time I was here I didn't really want to be a photographer but I still loved the process, I wouldn't lose that for a few years. I knew four people and had only been up here a handful of times. I couldn't find my way around without a map or getting lost. I had no idea where to live, eat, work. I figured it out but it was a tough process. I didn't love this city at first, but it definitely grew on me.

Now, nine and half years later, the thought of not living here terrifies me. This is where I became an adult. This is where I got my shit together, carved my own path. I'll have to keep notes about why i want to leave, which basically comes down to the four months of weather that makes me sit on the computer at 11pm on a Friday night when I had perfectly acceptable social options. Instead I walk the dog and try to thaw out before I go to bed.

I was awoken this morning at about 4am to the sound of "ice pellets" (as our forecast called them) hitting my window. Ice pellets. It wasn't just ice pellets, though, it was ice pellets and inches of compacted, wet, heavy, ice pellet covered snow, snow that I would end up shoveling before I go to work because I would rather shovel than fall down the stairs and I hate being that ghetto-y building that never has shoveled sidewalks or cut grass (because the grass never gets cut). So, I shoveled. It was a pain in the ass, or back, but it's exercise. What really pissed me off, though, was my upstairs neighbor seeing me shoveling, saying nothing to me and then locking the front door. Thanks, thanks a lot.

Off to work, walking over unshoveled sidewalks, waiting for the street to clear of cars in slush puddles while cars throw slush at you only to have to wait for the bus in a pile of dirty street plow left-overs which cover slush. By the time I got to work my feet were only slightly wet which would only be a little uncomfortable for the rest of the day.

The job is okay. It was sort of meant to the a dream job, but I'm all-consumed by this winter hatred right now. I hate winter footwear, I hate wearing throat squeezing scarves and hair flattening hats, well I don't hate hats but I hate my winter hair. I hate that I have to walk through three alleys-worth of puddles to get to the bus so that by the time I get to the bus stop my feet are completely soaked and cold and my bus card won't work and I have the crazy bus driver that I always have on Fridays who scares me a little bit and lets me sit down only with the promise of coming back and trying my card again (which I do and it works). Now, looking back at that sentence, it's sorta why I love this city, because of the crazy bus driver and the dude who asks me if he can help me shovel out my parking spot just so he can have it for himself. I would do that sort of thing, parking is a bitch and it's every man for himself, even if that involves a little helping the other man. I really don't want to have to shovel anything out of anything anymore. Every time I go outside I get a little angrier.

I noticed yesterday that in the cold I make these angry noises without any sort of conscious knowledge. In the summer, no matter how hot it is, I have a song stuck in my head which I am usually singing. In the winter I just try not to eat it on some asshole's unshoveled sidewalk while keeping my head down. and that's the real problem, my head is down. I can't keep my head up in the winter. I can't see the good things that are here, the things that I love. It doesn't help that every time I've left California the last few visits it gets harder and harder to come back here.

So here I am, determined to move, determined that this will be my last winter, my last Chicago winter. my last Chicago summer. Just thinking about it makes me a little nervous, but sometimes the things that have the greatest risk are the things most worth doing. I HAVE to do this.

Now I have to go to bed.