Right, well I noticed the same thing. I can't say I'm terribly pleased about it, especially since this "blog" is supposed to be treated like a "job." I read that in an article somewhere. It advised me to think of this blog as my job, that way I am working on it constantly and I am always giving my readers the product that they more desire. That's a precious way to think of this old girl. But until KatieMark.COM becomes a thing, you (as in vouz) will have to deal with the creative entity known as A Small Blog Thing. Of course I am making a pretty sizable assumption in suggesting you (vouz again) care, but pretending is half the battle when you're trying to be a writer.
In terms of my writing endeavors, that's still happening. The process feels slow, especially after last year when I had the most amazing writing schedule, but I'm figuring it out. Time management is a weird thing when you're navigating early adulthood. Odds are, your only commitment is work. And if your mind functions like mine does, you picture the "Things To Do" column and you only see one item. One obligation a day is way less than what I was doing in college. But somehow, I am more drained now than I ever was when I was rushing from work to class to meeting to rehearsal to college fair to library and back again. And that's because, and say this with much respect, college wasn't real. It was real in the actual sense but it was ultimately four years of being unbelievably self centered and doing things for me. College is very me centric, especially if you went to my college. You get your own spot in the library, you get your own holiday, you are guaranteed an active advisor from the time you send in your deposit check. You demand your friends go drinking with you on your birthday and then you get pissy with them when they don't leave you alone to study. College felt busy because we made it that way for ourselves. But now we're out here handling someone else's products, someone else's kids, someone else's money, someone else's research. We are on someone else's time. I've worked since I was 16, so I'm certainly not shocked that I actually have to do stuff. Now that "work" is the only thing in my obligations column, I suppose I understand what it means in terms of amount of ilk carried. This probably explains why I downloaded so many GRE apps last week and I now have to re-learn 10th grade math by February 9th.
Speaking of time and it not being your own anymore. Chicago has this thing called the Chicago Transit Authority, or the CTA. The CTA is both the L and the bus system. It's fine, a totally acceptable means of public transportation...until you need to be on time. I'm not necessarily being an asshole when I say that, I just think that's the most direct way of explaining the CTA. It's super cool to jump on the L on a Saturday afternoon and then spend the day in Millennium Park, or at the lake front, or shopping, or whatever. Anything that can be described as "recreational" is a okay. But if you NEED to be anywhere, the buses and the L run in windows of time. For example, the bus I need to take in the morning is at the stop anywhere between 5:27 and 5:31. Those minutes matter, because if you're not standing on the curb the bus will not stop and another one does not come for a good 15 minutes or so. I need to catch a train that leaves at 5:48, and the next one doesn't leave until 7:20. The minutes really matter and watching that bus fly by you because you were 10 feet to the left of where you need to be is the worst. I have to admit that being sans car has been more difficult than I had anticipated. Granted, my work/transportation is not what I thought it would be so of course my expectations are a little off, but still. Just because I live in a city doesn't mean that everything is right around the corner. Waiting on trains. Waiting on buses. Or missing them. I think that's been the most difficult adjustment.
And speaking of adjustments.
At work there's this coffee mug that I try to get every morning before I fill it with the Caribou Daybreak blend. Sometimes I keep it at my desk over night so I know it will be there the next day. It's an official Art Institute of Chicago souvenir mug and not only is it huge, but it also bears the image of Caillebotte's Paris Street: Rainy Day.
Caillebotte, Gustave. Paris Street: Rainy Day, 1877. The Art Institute of Chicago.
I've seen the piece twice in person and I loved it both times. Man friend and I like to turn museum trips into free verse oral narrative time, in which everything is a part of some plot happening somewhere at some point. I remember rounding a corner and seeing this piece displayed at center and I immediately pointed at the man with the umbrella's face. "Look at him," I said. "Who is he looking at? Some one from his past. Or maybe that's who she sees. Whoever it is, the other doesn't know." And I became a little obsessed with this question. Who are they looking at? What are they looking at? So it's kismet or cosmic justice or because it was in the clean cup stack, but I love that look at this painting every day while I sit at my desk. I can't stop thinking about what they're looking at. (I also can't stop thinking about how many times I've ended these sentences with "at" but for the sake of flow and limited brain power, I'm just going to leave them.) The Art Institute is open until 8 on Thursdays, so I could feasibly take my train back into the city after work, run into the museum, and just stare at this for awhile. The painting is post-Napoleonic, visual commentary on the modernity that was sweeping Paris, and it kind of whispers, everything is different now, isn't it? But it's a hesitant whisper, wishing that someone will say that nothing's different. But yet, here's the change, the transition, the "It's all happening!" moment. Just look at their faces. What are they looking at?
I hope I haven't dissuaded anybody from growing up. It's not so bad. You get to do cool things like go to the 96th floor of the Hancock Building for 14 dollar martinis on your 23rd birthday. You get to enjoy Saturdays in a beautiful, pure way that you never imagined you could love a day of the week. You get to buy different bread than whatever it is you grew up with. And you get to find things to look at, every day, for as long as you want to.
Coming up this weekend: The aquarium! I wonder who the fishes will be when I see them.
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