Every wall in my apartment is creaking. Apparently it’s because the wind is making the building sway. I live on the the 38th floor.
Can someone please take me back to NYC where I don’t have to lay awake at night wondering if the Chicago wind is going to blow my house down?
Between Etsy, Ebay, Pintrest, Tumblr, Netflix, Spotify and the occasional Facebook lurking session, I have very little reason to leave my apartment. I’m only one more Skype conversation from becoming a total recluse.
I will, however, draw the line at World of Warcraft. I’m not that desperate yet.
In Manhattan you can get across town in 20 minutes for $2.25, score a manicure for $6, go to a yoga class for $8, pick up a vintage DVF for $15 in the E.Vil, hit up innumerable free art exhibits/concerts/sample sales but you can’t get lunch for less than $20 in midtown.
In Chicago getting across town takes an hour and will run you about $9, a manicure fetches at least $12, that vinyasa class no less than $15, vintage DVF is unheard of because no one knows what DVF stands for but the all-you-can-eat Chinese/Mexican buffet is only $9.99 and they’re more numerous than Starbucks.
In summation, New Yorkers may be cranky but that’s only because a martini is $18, $22 if you ask for top shelf. At least we’re still lithe, primped and have the ability to justify a 35 cent banana as a meal.
I want to give Chicago the benefit of the doubt but it’s full of chubby white folk in boot-cut denim with Nine West faux leather handbags that will offer to deliver your groceries because you “look like you’re a little tired today.” It’s very neighborly but also very, very alarming.
On a positive note, I’m happy now be in a co-habitation relationship and not a long distance relationship anymore. Plus I’m saving loads of money on dry-cleaning because it’s too cold here for me to actually leave my apartment.
Chicago is my Suzanna Arquette to my Madonna.
Home Sweet Home
36 more days…..
Thank you for giving me such a wonderful life, you are the wheels on my bicycle.
In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion contemplated how the rituals of everyday life were fundamentally altered after her husband died suddenly in 2003. The book was published in 2005, just months after Didion’s only child, her daughter Quintana Roo, died at age 39.
Didion pieces together her memories of her daughter’s life and death in her new book Blue Nights. She tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross that she was unable to start mourning her daughter’s death until she started writing again.
