The choice that isn't a choice...

Greetings, everybody! I’m back after a one-week hiatus. I didn’t have time to write last weekend because I was a leader at the Chicago Cares Serve-a-Thon all days Saturday, and I also spent a good chunk of Sunday recovering from it. It was awesome, but it wore me out.

The poster frame debacle went on for a while longer and got even more ridiculous, but I did eventually get a refund. I ordered a different frame from a different company yesterday, so we’ll see if this one goes any better. I also bought two other pieces of Chicago art at the Wells Street Art Fair last weekend: one monograph of the skyline and one drawing of the el in the loop. They are both significantly smaller than the poster, so I didn’t expect a big problem with the frames. However, I did find out quickly that neither of them are standard sizes. Earlier today, though, I found the right size frames at Joann’s, and even got them for 50% off, so all is well. I put the art in the frames and they look nice. I just need to stop at Home Depot on the way home later and buy some picture-hanging hooks.

But anyway, on to today’s topic….

I seem to be, once again, at a fork in the road. Most of you know that I am a textbook editor at a university, and that for the most part, I love my job. Right now I’m the lead editor on an advanced algebra book intended for about 10^th grade, and I’ve had the opportunity to help with important curricular decisions, write activities and problems, research application contexts, and more. They sent me to my first conference in April. And most importantly, they make me feel much more valued and appreciated than any other job ever has. I’m doing something that I’m really good at, that I’m well trained for, and that is honestly fun and exciting for me. I adore my job.

However, the one of perils of working in textbook development, rather than textbook publishing, is that the project is grant funded and therefore has and end date. I knew when I accepted the job that the money would run out and my job would cease to exist no later than July 2009.

I have absolutely no regrets about taking the job. But now that the end of the project is barely a year away, I do have to start thinking about what I’m going to do next. So imagine my surprise and excitement when someone from the same university called me last week to ask if I’d like to be involved in another project that has an end date of 2013.

If I chose to go work for them, I’d be working on books from the same series as I work on right now, but at the elementary level rather than secondary. When I met with them, they said I would probably be staffed on fifth and sixth grade books, which is a good thing since by background is much stronger in secondary math than elementary math. I’d still be involved in the development of the books, so I’d be able to do the same kinds of things my current job has allowed me to do, not just italicize variable and add commas like I did when I worked in commercial publishing. And what’s more, during our meeting, the directors of this project told me that I could transition over to them at any point I wanted – at the end of the summer when my book is finished, or even in a year when the entire project is over.

It seems like a no-brainer, right? It seemed that way to me, too, at first. How can I even consider this a choice? Not only is this opportunity as close as I’m going to get to staying at my current job (which, again, I love), but there is no other alternative! No other alternative, that is, besides sending our dozens of resumes, going on dozens of interviews (if I’m lucky enough to get them), constantly worrying I’m going to run out of money before I get a job and end up staying on someone’s couch again, and so on and so on.

So why on EARTH am I hesitating? Loathe as I am to admit it, at the back of my mind is a tiny voice saying, “if you applied elsewhere, you could make more money.” Which is probably true. If I take this new grant position, I will probably continue making roughly what I make now. If I went back to working in commercial publishing, I would probably make $5 more an hour just to start. And that could lead to a dramatic change in lifestyle.

I’m not saying that I don’t like my life now. I do. But the truth is that I struggle with money sometimes. A lot of the time. And as I watch my friends who work in big business buy condos and clothes shop without hesitation, I do wonder if selling my soul to a corporate enterprise would be worth it.

I feel guilty even writing that, and I know deep down in my soul that will take the new job at the university and be happy for it. Because I’m getting by just fine. I’ve found ways to have a good time on a budget, and some of the things I’ve had to cut back on (like eating out) are better for me anyway.

But when I do take the job, I have to admit I’ll need some time to mourn the things I could have had if I was content to do nothing but italicize variables and add commas for the next 20 years. To help you understand where I’m coming from, and perhaps make you giggle a time or two, I’m going to write a wish list of the things I am giving up by doing something I really love to do.

1. An apartment with more than one room. I live in a studio apartment right now with about 300 square feet of living space. Honestly, most of the time I don’t mind, because I really don’t own enough furniture or anything else that will fill more than 300 square feet. But sometimes I can’t help but think to myself, “crimeny, can I get a friggin bedroom?” While I have plenty of space for me and my cat, the thought of inviting anyone over is out of the question. It’s physically impossible for more than two people to see my 14-inch TV at the same time unless 3 people know each other well enough to all sit on my 2-person love seat. How many pairs of people do you know that you’d be comfortable sitting hip-to-hip with for a 2-hour movie? I think I’ve made my point.

2. A kitchen with counters. This sort of goes along with #1, but not necessarily, because some one-bedroom apartments have kitchens smaller than mine. But the kitchen in my apartment consists of a sink, mini range, and refrigerator right next to each other, and about 2 feet of counter space on the other side of the sink. Half of that is taken up by my dish drainer (no, silly, I do not have a dishwasher), and the other half by a cutting board. Which means I have absolutely no counter space for anything else. I’ve often had to mix things while the bowl was on the stove, which is complicated when one of the burners is on, and even when the burners are off, because the range has a pilot light. Again, I’ve found ways to get around it, and nine days out of ten I am reheating leftovers rather than cooking anyway. But it’d be really nice to have some counter space. I mean, occasionally I’ve had to adjust cooking times on my crock pot because it’s been sitting on the stove all day and I know the pilot light will have hurried the cooking along. Go ahead and say it. That’s just sad.

3. Purchases that I can forget about. I’m not asking to not have to think about hundred-dollar clothing purchases or thousand-dollar vacations, but there was a time when I didn’t have to save the receipt from my $5 frozen yogurt purchase or my $10 movie ticket. Now, every cent I spend goes into a spreadsheet to make sure I don’t overspend my monthly income. I start forgetting small purchases, and they will add up and get me into big trouble. The really ironic thing is, the time when I didn’t have to worry about that was while I was in college. Now, I have a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and a job, and yet money is tighter. Kind of counterintuitive, eh? But it makes me realize how lucky I was to have a full-ride scholarship back then.

You know, I’m surprised, but those are the only three things I can think of. Those are the things I wish I had that I know I can only get by giving up a job I know I will really love to do something I know I won’t love.

I know this probably seems like a big pity party and complaint fest to anyone reading this. But thanks for reading anyway. Because you know what I’ve learned by writing this?

It’s totally and completely going to be worth it to take that job.

I hate you, UPS.

Alright, so I know that usually my blogs are more commentary and less straight-up storytelling, but this week I have a story that is just dying to be told. It is a story of great woe for me, but I am hoping that by writing about it I will lessen my frustration with the situation, and more importantly, give my readers (all two of you) some laughs. So sit back and enjoy…

The Saga of the Poster Frame

For several weeks after receiving my $300 stimulus payment from the man that will (thank God) not be president much longer, I deliberated over what I should spend the money on. After soliciting ideas for superfluous purchases from friends and strangers alike, I decided I’d use the money to purchase some art for the one blank wall left in my apartment. Ever since I moved in, I’ve been wanting some Chicago-themed stuff to hang there – a painting of a city scene, a map, maybe a skyline photo – but I had yet to be able to afford it and I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

My first purchase was a Chicago neighborhood map from the Chicago Architecture Foundation. Let me tell you, this poster is COOL. It shows over fifty neighborhoods, all the train lines, all the parks and beaches, and more. And the art itself is amazing. Everything is hand-drawn and it’s done in deep jewel-tone colors, which are my favorite. So, after I bought it, I couldn’t wait to hang it up.

However, hanging the poster required having a frame. So, after I noted the poster’s dimensions (27” by 39”), I went on a hunt for the correct size frame. One Sunday afternoon, I went into every store I could think of in a 2-mile radius of my apartment: Linen’s and Things, Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Marshall’s, World Market, and probably others I cannot remember right now. No 27” by 39” frames. Apparently the largest size carried by your average store is 24” by 36”. (An aside: If I were reading this at work, I would circle all those quotes and mark them to be changed to straight lines to look like the actual inch symbol. However, I am not at work, so I can’t tell the production people to change them, and I am too lazy to do so myself.)

After my failed attempts at purchasing a frame for my beloved poster in a store, I decided to order one online. I shopped around a bit by eventually decided to order just a standard black poster frame from amazon.com. A few clicks and a payment of $21.95 plus shipping and handling, and I could expect to be hanging the poster up in 7-10 business days.

The rest I am going to tell in timeline format, became often the timing is what makes this situation so frustratingly amusing. We begin on Wednesday….

5:40 PM: I come home to find a UPS Info Notice on the outside door to my apartment building. Hurrah! The frame is almost here! I carry my mail up to my apartment quite excitedly.

6:15 PM: I look at the Info Notice more closely and see that UPS claims that if I sign the notice and leave it back where I found it, they will leave the package for me. I decide that is a lie (or at the very least a bad idea) because my building’s outer door opens directly to the street. I read further to see that I can call a number to arrange for package pickup instead, and recall that my sister has arranged to pick up packages at any UPS store in the past.

6:20 PM: I call number to arrange for package pickup and find myself talking to a computer. I ask to arrange for package pickup anyway. I am shocked when computer-woman understands my request, and suddenly worry that I am actually talking to a human. Computer-woman says there is still time to get my package tonight and asks if I would like to do that. I say yes. She asks for my phone number and an alternate number, says someone from UPS will call me within the hour to arrange for pickup, and tells me I may hang up. I do so, still sort of wondering if that woman just talks like a computer so she doesn’t have to answer hard questions.

6:55 PM: My phone rings. I run for it excitedly but discover it is not UPS, but my friend inviting me to dinner. I do a poor job of covering that I am disappointed that she is not from UPS.

7:30 PM: I realize that more than an hour has passed and wonder why UPS has not called. I call my parents (the alternate number I gave them) to see if UPS has called there looking for me. They have not. So I call the 800 number again. Computer-woman tells me again they will call within the hour. She loses coolness points when she fails to understand “It’s been more than an hour,” “I did not receive a call,” “Let me talk to a human, you crazy computer-woman!”

10:00 PM: I decide they are unlikely to call, and go to bed disappointed that the neighborhood map is not on my wall after computer-woman got my hopes all up.

Thursday….

1:30 PM: I message my sister to ask if she’s ever had UPS not call her back. She says yes, and she had to call the customer service number. I attempt to call the customer service number, then realize I have left the Info Notice and tracking number at home.

6:00 PM: I arrive home and am a bit disturbed that there is not a notice of a second delivery attempt. I go upstairs and call customer service. Eventually I get connected to the same computer-woman, and stay on the line long enough that she asks if I want to talk to an agent. I say yes, and hope she doesn’t mean the FBI. I am put on hold.

6:15 PM: Finally, I get to talk to an agent. I inform him I never got a call. He looks at his computer and says someone tried to call last night and I did not pick up the phone. Before I can respond, he tells me that late pickup is only available on the first day, and now I have to go get my package during business hours, from 8-6, Monday to Friday. I am annoyed, but agree. There is a pause and asks if there’s anything else he can do. Exasperatedly, I tell him I still need to set up my pickup location. He informs me that the package is at 1500 S. Jefferson (many, many miles from both my home and my workplace) and I am not allowed to have it sent anywhere else. I ask if he seriously means I have no other options but to get to no-man’s land during business hours or be home for one of my two remaining delivery attempts. He responds that my additional option is returning the package to sender. I hang up on him.

6:35 PM: I message my sister to tell her UPS says I can’t have package delivered to any UPS store. She says that’s a lie, but they may charge me a fee. I wonder if my “agent” was dumb enough to not offer me options that included a fee and decide to call back.

6:45 PM: I call the 800 number and snap, “AGENT!” at computer-woman. She recognizes either the word or the fact that I am yelling and connects me. I ask the agent if I can have package delivered to a UPS store for a fee. He has to “check on that.” After taking my tracking number, he tells me that because I have “already arranged to have the package held at 1500 S. Jefferson”, they are unable to have the package delivered to anywhere else. Calmly as I can in my rage, I inform him I did not “arrange” anything, as I never got a call. I tell him the note on his computer is a lie, as my cell phone did not register a missed call and they also did not try my alternate number. I tell him that it is impossible for me to get to the holding warehouse or be home to receive the delivery during business hours. He reluctantly suggests having the package delivered to my office instead of my home. I agree, and give him my work address. He tells me that he will forward the information to the Chicago warehouse and they will call me within an hour to confirm the details. If they don’t, please call him back so he can figure out why they are not calling me.

7:10 PM: It suddenly occurs to me that the package contains a 27” by 39” poster frame and it is going to be a pain in the ass to get it home from my office on the bus. My annoyance and frustration renewed, I decide not to wait around for the call, but instead carry my phone with me while I walk to the optometrist to get my new glasses.

7:15 PM: I leave for the optometrist, but keep my phone in my hand the whole time I am walking so I won’t miss the call.

7:45 PM: I arrive at the optometrist and get my glasses! Yay! I am cute!

7:50 PM: I walk home, again with the phone in my hand. I have that weird feeling of the ground being too close because my prescription has gotten stronger.

8:20 PM: I arrive home. I have not gotten a call from UPS, and no missed calls have registered. I sigh and call my old friend the computer-woman and ask for an agent. Apparently the shift has changed, because my old agent is not there. New agent tells me I had no reason to expect a call. She confirms that the address has been changed, but the delivery will not be made until Monday. I hang up the phone and bang my head a few times on my desk in frustration. I am not at all confident that the package is ever going to get to me.

Friday….

7:45 AM: I tell my sad story to my co-worker on the bus. She says she’s sorry, but my new glasses are cute.

12:15 PM: I tell my sad story to more co-workers at the lunch table. They tell me I am welcome to have anything delivered there when I need to. I thank them, but mention that when packages contain things like 27” by 39” poster frames, getting them home on my hour and 15 minute commute on public transportation is not easy. My co-worker Gary offers to give me a ride home Monday. I graciously accept, and am relieved at least that part is taken care of.

3:00 PM: Gary sticks his head in my office to tell me to have a good weekend, then leaves.

3:15 PM: An additional coworker comes to my office to tell me my package has arrived. (You lied to me, 2^nd-shift agent!) I place my face in my hands as I remember Gary has already left and I will need to take the package on the bus.

3:17 PM: I retrieve the package from clerical office, and I am pleased to find that it is not very heavy.

3:20 PM: As I carry the package back to my office, my boss sees me, has pity on me, and tells me to go home early! I pack up quickly and decide to make a run for the 3:30 bus.

3:25 PM: I exit the building to find out there are gale force winds blowing. I have to cross a big field to get to the bus stop, and the large, thin package is acting like a windsail. I fight an epic battle to keep from losing the package or letting it drag me into the road.

3:29 PM: After that great struggle, I arrive at the bus stop one minute early. However, I am informed that the bus is running 10 minutes late. I struggle against the wind for 10 more minutes.

3:40 PM: Finally, I board the bus. I sit in a seat with the package in front of me, and feel guilty because it is impossible for anyone to sit in the seat next to me. I also feel like I am in a box, as I cannot see anything in front of or behind me. I furtively hope that the earlier bus will get me home quicker than usual.

4:05 PM: My hopes are dashed as we arrive downtown and discover a traffic jam due to the blues festival. I sink further into my box-prison and pout.

5:15 PM: FINALLY, I arrive at my stop. I struggle against the wind a bit more as I walk to my apartment. I carry the package up the stairs, get through my door, and do a little victory dance.

5:20 PM: I start ripping open the package, frantic with excitement. I pull the frame out to discover that the packaging has “27 inches by 41 inches” printed on it, but there is a sticker over the 41 with “39” written on it in permanent marker. Suddenly I worry if I got ripped off and the poster will not fit, but I lay poster over the top. It seems like it will fit.

5:25 PM: I get the rest of the packaging off and start to take apart the frame. I yell swear words as I discover that the plastic is cracked in two places, leaving one hole, and two of the frame’s corners are noticeably bent. I literally have to fight back tears as I laugh at the ridiculousness of this situation.

5:50 PM: I find out how to contact the company through amazon.com’s website. I send a scathing email asking for a refund.

7:30 PM: I receive a response from the company. They say they are very sorry and will refund my money when they receive the broken frame back. They tell me to return the frame to its original packaging, and….

“…UPS will contact you to arrange a pickup.”

That’s where the story ends for now. Needless to say, UPS has not contacted me. That would break Murphy’s Law.

So. Anyone know where I can buy a 27” by 39” poster frame?

I'm a part of that...

Hello and welcome to blog #2 from a local Chicago coffee shop. Today I’m at Noble Tree Coffee and Tea on Clark, a bit north of Fullerton. So far I’m not entirely impressed with the atmosphere, but they have Savor the Flavor beat on the menu. I’m just finishing a fabulous roast beef sandwich and iced chai latte. A bit expensive, but worth it once and a while for how good it was. Apparently this shop has several floors as well, so maybe I would like the atmosphere a bit better upstairs where there would not be a group of four pretentious people having a ridiculous conversation about interior design right next to me. Jury’s still out on this one.

In other news, happy anniversary to me! Today marks three years since I moved to Chicago. To mark this momentous (read: completely insignificant to everyone but me) occasion, I’m going to write on a topic that was suggested to me by my mother many months ago, while I was still in graduate school. During that year, I lived in Evanston, the first northern suburb, because that is where Northwestern’s main campus is located. And although Evanston is a very pleasant place to live, I spent the whole year saying that I could not wait to move back into the city. About the 98^th time my mother had to endure the complaint, she suggested that I write a blog about why I was so desperate to move back.

I never wrote that blog, not only because it was another eight months before I actually started writing again instead of just talking about it, but because I was not sure I could articulate my reasons for being so bothered by being outside the city’s borders. I am still not sure I can, but I think I’ve gained enough understanding of myself and the city over the last six months to give it a shot.

You see, for me, the city of Chicago is not just a location. It’s a way of life. So many aspects of my life changed the day I moved here. I wrote about one of the big ones last week: I now walk or take the train almost everywhere I go. This alone changed the way I think about how to best organize my day and about what I have to carry with me. For instance, stopping at a store on the way home requires not only knowing where the store is, like it would if I drove, but knowing what train stop is closest to it and whether the best way to get home is to get back on the same train I got off or take another. Generally speaking, coming home first before going somewhere after work doesn’t make a lot of sense, as so many things lie somewhere between my office at 6000 south in Hyde Park and my apartment at 2800 north in Lincoln Park. So, if I need anything for after-work activities, it has to come with me to work. On the flip side of that, I also have to think harder about what I really need to have with me. It’s not a good idea to carry extraneous stuff, because I do actually have to carry it with me wherever I go. There’s no leaving it in my car. If I am going anywhere but work on a work day, there generally has to be a plan mapped out in my head the day before.

Living here has also fundamentally changed my sense of time. For example, my sister lives about 4 miles north of me. On a good day, it takes me about a half-hour to get to her apartment from mine. The strange thing about that is, I think she lives quite close. While I was in high school, the people that lived a half-hour away lived on the opposite end of town from me. Indeed, the 15-minute drive from my high school to my house just outside of town in Zilwaukee was considered a really long trip. (No one ever wanted to come and get me or take me home. It was very sad. My parents allowed me to use some savings to buy a car when I turned 16, simply because they were so tired of having to take my places when my friends refused to pick me up.) Pre-Chicago, a half-hour trip was a burden. Now, it’s a pleasant little jaunt. My sense of time is so altered now that I have a really hard time judging how long things will take when I am not in the city. When I was at my parents’ house in August, one day my mother asked me to run three or four errands and do some cooking for a party we were throwing the next day. I told her I would try, but wasn’t sure I would get it all done. As it would turn out, I was done with all the errands and back home by 10am. The fact that I had a car and could drive point to point, and that the locations of all three errands were in about a one-mile radius, apparently did not factor into my calculations.

Anyway, my point is not to bore you with all the ways that big-city life differs from small-town or even suburban life. I am simply pointing out that there ARE huge and fundamental differences between how I live my life now and how I lived my life in Evanston. So, why do I like city life so much better? The couple of things I described above make it seem like a burden. You have to do more planning ahead, and everything takes longer.

The fact is, being an efficient city-dweller develops over time just like any other skill. Everyday existence is practice, and practice makes perfect. The longer you live here, the more you learn about the best ways to get around, the tools that help you carry more with you than you ever thought you were capable of, and closest stores that have anything you need. City-dwellers know secrets about the city that no one else knows. Not really because we jealously guard the secrets, but because they are things you won’t ever need or want to know unless you live here.

This phenomenon fascinates me, because it makes the city seem like a living, self-sustaining being. Only people that live here know what the difficulties and annoyances are, and so they start businesses in an attempt to alleviate those burdens. Then, simply by going about their everyday lives, which necessarily involve some walking and exploring, residents uncover these new secrets and support them. The city lifestyle helps to keep the city running. I really believe that only by living here awhile and letting the city change the way you think and exist can you understand its needs and contribute to them. Hopefully, that makes some sort of sense to you.

But again returning to my original question: how does all this relate to me being so desperate to move back into the city? Simply put, living in the city makes me feel connected to the rest of the people that live here. I see this city as one, connected, living entity, and I love the feeling of being part of the reason it remains alive. Simply by living here, I have a certain mutual understanding with all the people I pass on the streets and bump elbows with on the train. We all know the same secrets that people that non-city-dwellers simply don’t. We all have something in common and all know something about each other.

And that makes me feel less alone. Even though I live by myself, and do a lot of things on my own, and have had to learn to be self-sufficient in ways I never could have imagined, I feel less lonely living here than I would if all those things were still true and I lived somewhere else.

The funny thing about these blogs is that occasionally the act of writing them helps me understand things that I never have before. This is one of those times. Suddenly I realize that one of the huge reasons I would so unhappy in graduate school was that I was horrendously lonely. That’s why I was so desperate to move back into the city. Although I really loved my classmates, I simply did not think about the subject matter or the world of academia or life in general the way they did, and I felt very our of place and disconnected from the world. I wanted to move back to the city where I understood how people thought and lived.

I’m not sure I have made all of this as clear for you as I have made it for myself, so I am going to digress for a moment in an effort to explain this another way.

Are any of you familiar with the PostSecret project? There is a link to it on the right side of this page, under my profile. Basically, the founder of the project invites anyone who wishes to send in an anonymous postcard with a secret written on it. He then chooses the best ones out of the mountains of cards he receives and posts a couple dozen on a blog each week.

The project has an enormous following and has been going on for several years now. Tons of people have written to the founder, saying how moved they are, and how the share the same secrets, and how the project has changed their lives. I am a faithful reader of the posts, but I confess that I don’t connect with the project in the manner that the writers of those letters do. I find the secrets quite interesting and the art is sometimes breath-taking, but I don’t tend to share the secrets. In fact, for a long time, I felt like I didn’t even have a secret. Even if I wanted to send in a post card, I wouldn’t know what to say.

Yet, I kept reading each week. I think maybe I was hoping that one day I would have to moving, emotional experience that everyone kept talking about.

Then one day, I was scrolling down the page and stopped on a postcard that had a picture of hands reaching into the center of a circle. The text said, “I just want to be a part of something. Anything.”

I confess that I did not have an emotional breakdown or feel my life had been changed. But I did feel like I was looking at my own secret. It was not an emotional moment for me because it was something I had always known about myself, but I had never articulated it quite so well. The deepest, most desperate desire of my heart is to be part of something that matters. To be vital to someone and something. To matter.

In some small but fundamental way, living in the city makes me feel like I am a part of something. I think that’s the best way I can explain it.

I still think I may have been ineffective in communicating my feeling about this, but I have come to understand it better by writing this. So, thank you for reading.

As always, feel free to post comments or email me if there’s anything else you’d like me to write about. Next time, I will try my hand at something funnier. But on this, my third anniversary in Chicago, somehow this topic felt appropriate.

Have a fantastic day, and get out and enjoy the summertime weather! And I say this to all of you with the utmost sincerity: I wish you all the happiness and peace of mind that living in this city gives me.