Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Favorite things

Driftwood at Sunset on Lake Michigan

As promised so long ago, I will now list my favorite things. It has been awhile, so I guess alacrity doesn’t make the list. Neither does correctly using the word “alacrity”.

1. Smells: Pumpkin bread, clean baby, campfire, Spaghetti Sauce, rain, ocean, fresh brewed coffee, fresh bread at 5 am on Grand Avenue outside D’Amato’s
2. Places: The blue house, the bird sanctuary by Montrose Beach, the Southeast corner of Lake Michigan, The harbor off the island of Anegada, BVI,  Sorrento, Italy, Tintern Abbey, UK
3. People: The three of us and our friends and family
4. Music: Lately, I’ve been listening to Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Florence + Machine, Tool, The Smiths, Joy Division, REM, Talking Heads, Wilco, Billy Bragg, Fugazi, Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Django Reinhardt, Oscar Peterson, Aimee Mann, Elliott Smith, and more that I just can’t remember.
5. Mode of transportation: Either Divvy Bikes or running
6. Sleeping position: Side
7. Toothbrush: Sonicare – no substitutes
8. Daughter: Constantly fluctuates back and forth between the two.

Posted on

Survived the Winter…

Winter was brutal in the blue house.  But at least we got to have Christmas.

One of the problems buying a new home is that you only see it in its best light.  You look for homes in the Spring and Summer, and then you commit.  I learned a lot about the house – it’s strengths and weaknesses.   It became more real once I began to see its flaws and personality.

The biggest challenge was the cold.  It was so cold.  The furnace was old and couldn’t keep up.  The pipes froze.

But not panicking is a good way to keep yourself together until the pipes thaw and the furnace gets fixed.  I shoveled the snow when it fell, and I swept the porch and sprinkled salt.

I started the winter with the flu.  It killed me (almost) and then morphed into a long bronchitis. Just as I was recovering from the flu, the furnace couldn’t keep up and the pipes froze.  It was a long January.  But I’m happy for difficult things that weren’t terrible things.  I got better.  The furnace just needed a little attention, and the pipes didn’t burst.  All was good.

We had Christmas here.  It was warm and cozy.  We had New Years here as well.  This house isn’t a perfect house, but it’s a good house.  Just like its family.

Posted on

Plans and Planning

All packed up and ready to move.

 The middle of July was a whirlwind for me.  Bastille day, July 14th was my “closing date”.  The process of buying and selling real estate always seems like a medieval exercise to me.  Papers and titles and deeds and notes all flurry around a small office.  The only thing that tangibly changes is that my name is written on a few dozen pieces of paper.  After that, I get the keys.

The ADT Alarm guy was pretty
expedient.  He worked while the
cleaners cleaned.

It’s always struck me as odd, how we as a society address property ownership.  It’s really an intellectual idea that’s tied to physical stuff.  Energy tied to matter.  When we “own” something, it doesn’t change intrinsically, but our interaction with it changes.  Basically, it becomes legal for us to use it as it was intended.  I couldn’t walk into this house on Thursday, but Friday after 10 am, it was mine. Same house, (slightly) different universe.

But enough of that!  I had to run a MOVING DAY.  I had it all planned out top to bottom – beginning to end.  And as is tradition with moving days, all the plans disintegrated and the detritus ended up giving the same result, just with much more anxiety along the way.

Apparently, if you sign your name
a bunch of times, they give you keys.

The original plan was simple – Close on the house on Friday, and then on Saturday we’d get the cleaners, ADT and AT&T to work in the morning while packing up the moving truck at the apartment.  After the workers were done, we’d unpack the truck on Saturday around noon, and then hit IKEA on Sunday.  IKEA would deliver Monday and we’d have a house by Tuesday.

Not even close.

Friday, before the closing, I met my realtor, Dave at the house and we walked through the property to make sure it wasn’t on fire or filled with corpses or anything.  (It wasn’t.)  Then as we were leaving, Dave noticed my neighbor standing outside.  “Meet the neighbor?” he asked.  I thought this would be a good idea, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that I’d have to know neighbors since I had been so reclusive in my cocoon-apartment for so long.

I didn’t realize it, but this neighbor was fairly reclusive, and his being outside was a bit unusual.  I introduced myself as the new neighbor, and he immediately asked “Are you coming to the block party tomorrow?”   I was surprised, as there had been no mention of a block party in any of the pre-sales emails between realtors and buyers and sellers.  My brain raced – a block party meant that the street would be closed, and my truck would not be able to make it to the house and my new house would be ruined due to a terribly botched move.  I might not even see an IKEA that weekend…  I panicked.

Of course there were surplus boxes.
I gave them away for free on
facebook.  

It turns out, I’m pretty good at re-arranging moving parts of planned weekend moves.  I kept all the tradespeople on Saturday (AT&T, ADT, housecleaners, etc.)  but switched the movers to Sunday.  On Saturday, I worked to prepare the house and pack up the rest of my stuff in my apartment.  I also met many new neighbors at the block party whose names I have completely forgotten.

I figured there wasn’t that much stuff to move since I was only moving boxes, beds, and my kitchen table.  I was wrong – there was a lot going on.  It turned out that I needed that extra day to pack.  I hit Home Depot, bought extra boxes, and congratulated myself on packing up EVERYTHING in my house.

The next morning, I confidently ambled over to the U-Haul lot to pick up my truck.  The lot was, of course, closed because if it were open, it would have been too easy.  My reservation wasn’t going to be honored.  Also, it was starting to rain.  Also, my movers were showing up at the old apartment expecting 4 hours of moving work.  Second panic attack.   I had a packed up apartment, no beds, no food, movers, and no truck.  And it was raining.

Of course in the city of Chicago there’s always a truck available somewhere.  30 minutes after filing my useless customer complaint with uHaul, I found myself in a snappy yellow Penske truck from Home Depot.  Truck acquired, rain abating, I met the movers at the apartment, loaded up my crap, and moved my family.

IKEA never fails to impress.

It’s funny that all of this drama happened in the space of a weekend – and it really only affected me.  I was spending all the money I had (and more) on this house.  I had signed my name to documents that continued a chain of custody for a weird little triangle of dirt that went back over a century.  I got keys and a piece of paper that made me the owner and king of that triangle of dirt.  The universe changed, I expended a ton of energy, and I got a little piece of the world that I can call my own.

I never made it to IKEA by the way – I bought everything online, and had it all delivered for $99.  And it looks amazing.

Posted on

Leaving the Cocoon

Before the Blue House, there was the cocoon.

In February of 2010, I signed a lease for a 2 bedroom apartment in a vintage Lincoln Square 2-flat.  After a decade of marriage, and an additional three years of kidding ourselves, I was leaving our cozy, single family home in Northcenter and moving north into single-dad, rental solitude where I would stay for 8 years, until I was ready for the blue house.

This isn’t the post where I delve into the marriage and  dissect how it went wrong. This is the post where I talk about the role that this apartment played in my transition.  In 2010 I was disoriented.  Still technically married, I was unsure how to navigate the new waters of parenthood and child support and being single.  I was sad and angry and in debt.  I needed a shelter – a place for my daughters and I to be safe and figure out how to re-construct my life as I became technically un-married. This apartment was my cocoon.

When I moved into the apartment in 2010, I approached it like a homeowner.  I had been rehabbing our old house for the last 11 years, and I still approached my living space as something I could change and build myself.  I hung curtains and, over time, switched out electrical and plumbing fixtures.  The very first thing I did – even before I bought furniture – was change out the light switch cover in the girls’ shared bedroom. The whole apartment was pretty austere at the beginning: dark hardwood and cold flourescent fixtures.  I switched out the light switch plate to try (in some small way) to make their room more theirs.  It was subtle, and probably more of a subconscious clue, but it was a start.

After I had been there a few years I started hanging the art wall – a scotch-taped menagerie of my daughters’ elementary school artwork. I also started hanging family portraits everywhere. I was starting to assert my identity as someone other than the husband.

This apartment was more than a home to me, it was more like a hideout. A place where I could get shelter, and avoid the social entanglements that came with being a full-fledged, home owning, member of society. I transformed pretty dramatically inside this cocoon. Physically, I lost 40 lbs – I quit drinking for a year and took up swimming. Later, when I had lost enough weight, I switched to running. Eventually that would take me to the Chicago marathon.  I dug myself out of debt, and started on the road to the blue house.

To become a butterfly, a caterpillar first digests itself. But certain groups of cells survive, turning the soup into eyes, wings, antennae and other adult structures 

-Scientific American

So… I’m not sure if I digested myself, but there’s not much left of the caterpillar I once was.  What’s interesting is this: the cells that turn into wings, antennae and eyes were all there in the caterpillar’s body when he entered the cocoon.  But he just couldn’t use them until he had almost destroyed himself completely in the safety of the cocoon.

Posted on

Piano that makes you brilliant

This piano was the hardest
possession to sell –
I’m not sure if I made the right decision

This is a Cable console / upright piano that has literally played every feeling I’ve had for 20 years.  I’ve confirmed it can make these noises: joyful, angry, melancholy, exuberant, tearful, giddy, morose, off-kilter, curious, scared, in love, and broken-hearted.  It is especially good for procrastinating when you’re supposed to be doing something with your life instead of playing that damn piano all day.  It’s yours for $100 or best offer if you hire actual movers and promise to use it. -craigslist ad 

I sold my piano for nothing.  This is only fitting, since I got it for free.  The condition was that the new owner would hire professional movers, and that they would encourage their kids to play it all the time.  Those were the same conditions I was given.

I originally came by this piano via a work colleague, Karen F., who had owned it for years and was moving to a smaller home with her new husband.  Her kids had learned to play on it, and she had a sentimental attachment to it.  I was recently married, and planning to have children, so she let me take it for free, as long as I didn’t screw it up and let my kids play it.

This piano was really a part of me – it was always central to my home.  First in my house on Leavitt,it was right at the base of the stairs, and I could fill the house with it.  My daughters would bang on it, scribble on the sheet music, and sit on my lap while I played.

Later in my apartment on Bell, it was my companion through the first years post-divorce.  I didn’t get it immediately when I moved into the apartment.  I had been there almost a year before we had it moved from our house to my apartment.  After we sold the house, my ex-wife had no use for it and – I think – allowed me to have it as an act of compassion.  When I got it, it was like an old friend had moved in with me.  We’d spend many nights sharing a drink (or three) playing through the real book, and Mozart, and Beethoven.
When I re-met the Fabies (that’s a different story), I started writing music on the piano.  It was a new type of music for me to write.  I wrote dozens of tunes on that old piano – slightly out of tune and creaky by now.  We recorded and played those songs, and they sustained my through the first years of my new single-ness.    I didn’t realize it at the time, but the piano became something of an extension of my subconscious.  I’d play “All of me” or “Witchcraft” when I was happy in the afternoon and the sun was shining, and when I was dark and pensive in the evening (after a drink or two) I’d play “Stella” or “Chelsea Bridge”.

I decided to sell it instead of making it fit in the new house after a lot of thinking.  On the one hand, this piano was a piece of my life story.  It was a drinking buddy and a writing partner.   It was there for me whenever I needed it.  I knew to avoid the Bb below middle C because it didn’t sound right.  I knew that the pedals were squeaky.  I kept the lid open, and the bench pulled out so that I could always sit down and play.

On the other hand, I was leaving.  I was exiting the cocoon.  This home I huddled in for some 8 years was going to be empty and I was leaving it for the new energy of the blue house.  I could force the piano to fit – to align to the new energy of the place – or I could cut it loose.  Leaving the last vestige of my old home behind.

My inspiration came from “Toy Story 3”  – the saddest of all the Toy Stories.  It was time to move on from the piano and let it serve another family.  I had kept my promise to Karen F.  My daughter had learned to play “Minuet in G” on that piano.  After she memorized it, she played it on an infinite loop to torture me.  It’s a beautiful tune, but after the trillionth time, it wears on you. I posted it for sale for $100 or best offer, knowing I’d find a parent with small children and give it away for free.

So here’s the best song I wrote on that piano (out of all of them).  It’s called, fittingly, “Home”.