The Gray Couch

This morning when I was about to leave the house but before I got the call I ended up spraying myself in the eyeball with sample perfume and boy would have it been nice if that was the worst part of the day.

Written yesterday:

So I hope to write up the trip in 3-5 more posts, but first: an interlude from the present. 

I was trying to sell/give away for free a few items of furniture: I am moving soon. I posted on craigslist but nobody responded, though it tends to be a good place for finding roommates. On fbmarketplace two people promptly tried to scam me: the first asked me to text them a security code to my Google Voice account to "verify my identity" before coming by. Not sure what Google Voice access unlocks...but the code arrives with a disclaimer to not share. So that was an easy bullet dodge. Another said Zelle needed my email to send money, which was plausible, and then started sending me fake emails from Zelle. They were "trying to send me 10$ but had to send 100$ and wanted my word that I would send the 100$ back" barraging me with a quick succession of messages-- none of the activity was showing up in my bank, and I reported both of them on fb - or meta, I guess. As of right now, the free fold-out couch was picked up this morning, by a woman named Susie, which was funny to me because the roommate from whom I had inherited the couch was also Susie. When I mentioned it she said she had also picked up a table this morning - from yet another Susie! Someone picked up the 90s style frames I had thrifted and used for half a year before deciding I couldn't get over the dated style and posted on the neighborhood free-stuff page. And someone is on their way to pick up the large black coffee table for 5$. No follow through on a swivel chair, which cost me more than any of the other items and is easier to move.

Additionally, it is four days from the end of the month and I do not have a lease signed for the next month. I got approved for an apartment on Friday but then they suddenly started talking about the move-in date being 8th or 15th of the month, despite me viewing it for the 1st and verifying this information more than once. We had already gone through an overbearing application process were they wanted me to have a cosigner even though I haven't needed one for my last two apartments, and needed my cosigner to provide proof of having the job for at least a year, and other information in excess of what I have needed to provide in the past. I sent an email asking if this was a mistake, and explained I need a Sept 1st move-in and left a voice message. They said they would have the lease document to me on Saturday but never sent it, I sent a second email saying I need to hear back by Monday afternoon or I will move to my plan B and not be signing the lease, tried calling a couple of times to no avail. So I have been anxiously packing up my apartment and getting rid of furniture I don't need. On Thursday I picked off the hair in the middle of my left eyebrow, and intermittently I wake up at 6am with apartment related nightmares. I also just realized I haven't left the apartment since Thursday night. 

I do thankfully have a back-up plan: to stay with some friends I made recently who own a house. I almost hope this apartment falls through: I don't imagine these people will be responsive to maintenance requests, and I feel resentful of all the stress. I've called moving companies but don't even have an address to give - a storage unit? the studio? wish me luck. 

Update: So plan B it is, the lease did, indeed, fall through. They tried lying to me and saying it was Sept 15th this whole time but I remember talking to them twice about a Sept 1st move-in. After the perfume in my eye and the nasty call where my lease fell through, I went to my bus stop to get to work. While I was standing there I saw a man in a wheelchair get hit by a car! A bunch of us ran over and tried to help. I don't think I did a very good job, I was already frazzled, he seemed dazed: he was totally bumped out of the wheelchair and it was tipped over, with him on the ground. As far as I could tell he wasn't bleeding but it was hard to know if he was injured, or how he was, since he mostly spoke Spanish. I called 911 and they said an ambulance was already on its way but to keep him still - which I relayed to the group as they were already midway through getting him back into the wheelchair. They wheeled him over as I caught my bus to get to my first appointment of the day. 

Kefir and Muesli

I will later perhaps try and make sense of my abrupt return here.

Later, too, I will outline in greater detail the actual details of my trip, which spanned Dresden, Prague, and Berlin. 

But right now I am trying to grasp the things that I gained from my vacation: long walks, kefir in the morning, good meals out, art museums, my traveling companion (my brother, a month shy of 25, who requested we spend most of the time speaking Russian, which we did until we got to Berlin), writing, photography, seeing friends I hadn't seen in a decade or so, meeting strangers, coffee, beer, taking in the streets...hoping to hold onto these things and bring them home. 

Kefir was easy to arrange, the muesli slightly less easy but I was able to create an approximation of my own. The American cereal aisle is dessert for breakfast: from unabashedly candy-flavored, to sugar-coated raisins feigning a balanced start to the day. I was able to find something with flakes and granola to mix in with oats, flax, and hemp. Blackberries were more affordable this grocery trip than they usually are, and the nectarines were on sale. I don't think about the cost of fruit when traveling. Red and Black currant was in season and readily available in Europe. It is such a rarity in the US, especially since black current was illegal for almost a century and continues to be highly regulated as a crop. And so, I can recreate the breakfast Yosef and I had every day in Europe. We had carried a bag of muesli we got in Dresden to Prague and then back up to Berlin, eating exactly one bag between the two of us during the whole trip, and drinking through a box of English Breakfast tea. It is hotter in Chicago than it was in Europe, so here I have been brewing a large amount of chai and sticking it in the fridge for iced chai in the morning.

I realize, dear reader, this is a very literal way to try and capture a vacation to extend it into “regular” life. I do believe though, that some of our life is informed by the ways in which we follow day-to-day actions. And there may be something to be learned from observing what one does when plucked from those rhythms which we neglect to otherwise examine. Some of the ways in which we are in life will not be shaken when we travel, no matter what we hope, sure, but I found more affirmations than disappointments.

Many of the things I did differently were less ... self-indulgent? hedonistic? in nature, than one might expect. These terms have baggage – Protestant ethic morality versus Pagan debauchery comes to mind. But here in 2023: when tired at the end of a long week, I am more likely to fall into watching a show or YouTube endlessly, and sometimes believe that if given the opportunity to exist without responsibilities, this is the sad place I would find myself. And perhaps, sometimes, that is true. But not always. What I am thinking of is Pleasure Paradox/Hedonistic Treadmill. (My father texted me on the trip asking if these terms were mainstream – I said I don’t know, and that I am not a good measure of what is mainstream knowledge in psychology.) I was surprised how much I wanted to do things, even the things that are not the most direct path the pleasure. 

Yes of course some combination of vacation-magic and necessity meant eating out for most of our meals, and this is not something I want to or can do otherwise, though about half of these meals were very enjoyable. At the same time, it seems I found more energy to do the work of finding slower burning contentment, which has been evading me lately. I remember last time I was in Berlin I felt inspired to stop eating meat again - I had started eating it again at the end of my first year of college, feeling unable to push back on the chaotic selection at the college dining hall. But I felt inspired again in Berlin - found the energy to pursue this small bit of idealism after a year break. I continue this way still, eating meat about once a year, the rest of the time automatically defaulting to the way I have eaten since I was 14. Two of the most recent carnivorous instances in the past two years were on this vacation, in Prague, when I found myself sprung out of rhythms. I see a lot online about motivation versus discipline, but personally, life would be easier if I had a better practiced thoughtlessness. Good habits have always felt like the slipperiest of eels thrashing out of my grip.

My tomato plants which had started to carry green berries when I flew out are now holding ripe tomatoes. I made my first harvest on Friday, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and mixed in with burrata cheese which I shared with a studio friend before we went to a small gallery near me. Two small rooms, a stream of people going in and out, it was free. Art museums are harder to arrange at home. They are certainly one of the planned indulgences of travel. We bought three-day art tickets in Berlin, and saw art in every city. But at home, as large as the Art Institute in Chicago is - and it is, it is massive - I have many of the rooms memorized by now. Perhaps next time I will return with a sketchbook. Do a better job of tracking down smaller galleries – and so on.  

I read half of Erwin Mortiers Shutterspeed on my flight back, and finished it my first day home, with a slow realization that I must have already read it, possibly all the way through, when I purchased it - I think in 2015 on a trip to NYC. The graphics on the cover are perhaps, then, more memorable than the text itself. Regardless of my enjoyment of the novel, the act of reading was less laborious than it has been of late. 

I have walked at least four miles every day since returning to Chicago but want to learn to run - time saving relative to walking for a couple hours, some flexibility to do it in the morning before it gets too hot after the effects of my jetlag run out. Yesterday it was raining but I still went, after an apartment viewing fell through, to watch the waves of Lake Michigan crash into the rocks and cement steps that make up the lakeshore. I thought: if I take in Chicago as if it is a new city to me, or a city I love, perhaps living here will be easier. I am good at appreciating the alleyways, the graffiti, the light, but sometimes Chicago feels gray and desolate, its industrial roots mean occasional vacant stretches within the city itself, breaking up life. My experience here, too, is broken up by the plague, the often fleeting or superficial social connections of grad school, and my own personal upheavals. I am trying - started to before I left - to have a true Chicago summer. Everybody here says summer is the best time but I dread the sticky heat. It melts my brain and makes me sick. But I still endeavor to steal some of its spirit for myself; swimming in the lake, attending some of the dozens of farmers markets and festivals that spring up, and eating ice cream. Perhaps these are avenues to fall into conversations with strangers and see the city with new eyes. Bring a camera with me, write about it here. 

 Wish me luck.

oh hi

OH HI!
no  one will see this now that Google+ is dead.

Here's my update:
I AM MOVING TO CHICAGO
I will be attending The Chicago School of Professional Psychology for a PsyD
I went to Chicago three times and Philly twice since I started these interviews at the end of January. Last one was on April Fools day. I put down my deposit on the fifteenth of that same month.

my job is going through the end of JUNE - I am helping in looking for someone to fill my spot - I wounder if that means I can add hiring manager to my resume

I am taking online classes because I didn't have a prereq done for my grad program.
I have been having migraines and think cutting my hair will help.

I am going to Israel in July and then somewhere else. After some back and forth I should be getting my Israeli passport in the mail soon. The second leg of the trip will be with Matt but we haven't planned it yet.

I am coordinating with three girls regarding flatmate living in Chicago. They will all be attending a different psych graduate school which I decided was a worse fit for me, but I met one of the girls through the interview.

My youngest brother is a teenager. My grandmother here for her annual visit.

I will flesh out most of this later.

this is all for now