Nearly good luck and major good looks

Fluffy-headed Co-worker called as I was leaving work and had magically found three tickets to see M. Ward and Freakwater in the office printer, under a name we did not recognize. This fit with our last couple of days of nearly good luck and so we rolled with it, making plans to scream "I can't get a third strike" if we got checked at the door. The ride up there was heavily reminiscent of the edge of 17, forever wondering if I would have to read in McDonald's while my friends saw the show. We were brainstorming about whose tickets they could be and there was no one. Absolutely no one! Jesus did this for us, for he loves us! Until we were in and saw our super cool coworker Beth Pettinelli and Friends talking to the door man. Of course, Beth Pettinelli. She taught Freakwater to sing, M. Ward to play guitar, she was in the Replacements and the Pretenders and maybe the Beatles. We copped to our duplicity just as the manager came over and had re-printed their tickets, apologizing for the mistake Ticketmaster had made. We're in! And now these people think we are skeezy shysters and ridiculous adolescents. Beth was sweet: "I bet you guys thought 'Score!'" Yes, we did. And who the fuck thinks "Score!" anymore?

The string of nearly good luck continued, in that we were there, and caught three Freakwater songs. At the same time we had inconvenienced one of the world's kindest humans, and M. Ward blew. He was shocking. I was shocked. It was slow, and I get that--I can amuse myself if one has chosen to sing lullabies. I'll make jokes about launching pillows from a t-shirt cannon and look at boys. I was fucking hilarious.

I was shocked by his throw-back pretension. Do people really sing songs like that anymore? I'm not kidding, the lyrics were about an Artist and how they don't respect what he does because they want to watch TV; they don't know real Art, and they demand he change his Precious Music before he can get their Dirty Money. He's playing the fucking Park West, with assigned seating, black lacquer, and sheeny velvet curtains. They want him to make a video, can you imagine? The audience chuckles. That is droll. They sent him to Sundance (more chuckling) and now they want a video, so he subjects my precious cones and rods to an immature and stupid one-note inside joke. Narcissists. They make me think of my uncles. I should have demanded that other girl's money back.

We left early and Catherine Irwin, Best Person Ever, was smoking and telling a funny story about the Post Office trying to give her Ronald Reagan stamps. I pray that she use her magic powers of humor, beauty, and self-effacement to transform M. Ward into a real boy. Okay, wait: I love M. Ward. I don't like that thing I saw in him that I see places and I don't like, but I love M. Ward, and I love you.

I cut a brutal swath through the Chicago social scene this weekend. I was like a redheaded dancing sword wielded by a Norse god. And I wasn't the only one who thought so: everywhere I went, I heard it said again and again: "You are the redheaded dancing sword of a Norse God."

Friday night: West side spoken word in a basement club. Even when the Malcolm X poster fell on me, I was not deterred. Even when the giant dude with locks "spit his piece" about apartheid while staring at me, and then said that he thought of apartheid because "I saw black and white together," I was not deterred. East Coast kicked ass and won my heart. Someone spun disco classics and I danced. I even did my spotlight move for Zumehka, and whilst most people still refused to look at me, my friends were appreciative. Everyone needs a little light, no?

Then on Saturday I had a fancy meal at a fancy restaurant, paid in full. There is something so Big City about free bread in a restaurant that is not Olive Garden. The waiters are very, very, very serious, and despite my best Sweet and Humble Ohioan act, they think I am a tasteless monkey. This is because they are whacked out on cocaine. I asked everyone to describe their fanciest restaurant experience and then, with the conversational ball rolling, realized that all of my restaurant experiences are fantasies about Alpana Singh cobbled together from hundreds of 'Check, Please!' episodes. When my turn came I recalled the pork tenderloin from a quaint bistro on Rush Street--I liked the wine pairing, Alpana was ambivalent, but knew the owner. And then she and I made out on a bed of arugala.

After the meal: indie rock party! I was promised a dance party in honor of Keith Coogan, and he and I danced like mad all night long. In my head. Because young kids today do not dance, especially when hobbled by beer and cake. I danced. My cousin danced. Some guy in a plaid shirt was amazing--I bet he is my cousin. I hear cousins are the new handbags, and dancing is the new staring-in-distaste-and-fear.

Sunday I watched the Bears do something while I was yelling. Jill knows all about football and sporty girls are wicked hot--until they turn on you. Suddenly she was asking me what safety meant and why was I clapping? Because Chicago is clapping, girl who had a butch father. We hung out with the bartender for far too long. The Irish Bartender in Chicago is my kryptonite. What could deter St. Renegade from her service to the poor, the oppressed, and the sexually victimized? A tragic drunk with a wicked sense of humor named Timothy Patrick Joseph O'Herlihy McGrady. Probably he is also a poet, maybe a musician of some sort. They approach you like you've already broke their heart. It makes everything so easy.

There are weekends at the end of every week, forever, until we die. This was just the beginning, Chicago. Like our football team, the Bears, I refuse to hibernate in the winter. I am kicking ass. This weekend, I predict: art show, hot air balloon race, benefit show, hiding from cops, party on private yacht.

St. Renegade brutalizes the very concept of brutality with crushing, brutal crushingness

About that last post: I was sad. I remain sad, or more like saddened, but I am buoyed by Best Friend telling me that everyone in Kalamazoo is cranky right now. Then Roommate, who flies around this country for a living, brought back news of national malaise. So I, for one, feel a bit better.

I was so sad and blue that I thought about calling off work, mistakenly thinking that the needs and love of emotionally disturbed children would bring me down. Except I'm me, and I had a great day, my two Js were in top form and my Girl complained that all we do is go to meetings with mean people. In filling out an agency survey she wrote that "caseworkers and clients [Hey! How do you spell 'client'?] should do more fun stuff together." Amidst the endless psychiatric, alternative school, regular school, and drug treatment assessments I drive her to, she thinks I should be showing her a good time. I reminded her of the time I took her to the Gospel McDonalds, and she called me foolish. She's right, though. We went to the cultural center once and saw the Other Nick Cave's fabric installations, and she was deep on a whole other level. Our time together is dwindling. She will be in a group home soon, and maybe I will stay her therapist, or maybe not. She will break my heart. We should go to the Holograph Museum!

There is also painful man-related neurosis and bleakness and even singing in my car could not help me. When Mariah Carepy cannot sooth the self-laceration, it's time to stop resisting. I used Google to look up my Fake Boyfriends of the Past and Maybe the Present. First and foremost is Sam McPheeters, for whom I read 10+ articles in the Orange County Weekly, and had this to say about our shared cultural future:

"This line of thinking continues: 20th century popular culture has secretly devolved into a colossal pyramid scheme in which each subsequent generation gets a little more swindled than the last. The disappointment is there for all to see. It lingers in the hordes of electro-clash enthusiasts gamely ignoring the worship of bands one generation old. It lurks on the faces of teen punkers bumbling down the sidewalk covered in patches like unemployed NASCAR drivers, their tattered costumes advertising bands 20 years dead. Every year the disappointment spreads.

For a long-term forecast, we have the Middle Ages to guide us. Picture filthy, syphilis-encrusted peasants squatting in the ruins of Roman splendor. Dread Zeppelin is but one of many mile markers on this same road to societal collapse. Enjoy."

Sometimes, that's what soothes.

We have to do a little mental editing here, so that the chair looks less Catholic, more corporate--a low quality chrome frame and tan tweed-ish upholstery. And then that sweet little gal should be me, in my 'you don't pay me enough to look less trashy' pseudo-real job wear. The book would be a bulky and poorly organized DCFS manual. And the answer would be: it IS all bullshit.

I was supposed to lead a discussion of race in child welfare practice today, the day of days, MLK Day, which we do not honor at my agency. We ended up not discussing race, or the social function of child welfare, of course, but in my preparation I reached a cold hard sad part of things. The fact that child welfare is "an institution designed to monitor, regulate, and punish poor families of color." The idea that, much like prisons, we may be doing more aggregate damage than good in our effort to create safety, mythical safety. The slow shift from thinking that sometimes the system hurts people to thinking that the main product of the child welfare system is damaged people.

You know what I'm doing? I'm making it easier to go. I have got to go, not because I can't ethically stand it anymore, but because I can't pay my bills. I'm trying to make a way out for myself because I am all tied up with child welfare, and the rage and the pain of it, and I'm angry that I can't stay here and bitch because I'll end up being either bankrupt or writing bad checks. Not that the system isn't a soul crushing machine, but it's the one I love. For the man himself, for Dr. King, I'll be honest and loving in the face of wickedness, my own and others.

I'm the one on the left.

Christmas dinner this year was some Guinness, peanut butter and cheese crackers, and string cheese from the White Hen on Western and 107th. I dragged Honorary Cousin down to Beverly Hills, Chicago, because she's a super cute dude magnet whom, I assumed, would pull a working class Irish-American hero to my side. It turned out to be a high school reunion scene, but whatever: there was beer, there was a fireplace, there were Life Stories to be told. Lonely Christmas 2006 wasn't all bad but it turns out that I must have kids around on the holidays. You can drain the joy from them to fill the cold, lonely, cavernous hole of your soul.

Then it was off to California to hang out with my sister, some old friends, and my newest friend: Modern Walking Doll with Fashion Outfit. She's the hot blond member of our posse, and the Silver Lake Hipsters loved her. Plus she can knock back some cole slaw, let me tell you.

For much of my trip I was filled with a low-grade, slow-burning fire of righteous judgment that left me feeling drained, bored, and angry at my sister. At some point I had to stop hiding from the Movie Star so I embraced the upper class California way and drank white wine in the hot tub. Then I watched DVDs of movies that haven't even been released yet, ate Goldfish crackers out of an enormous tub, and wrote in my journal like the sensitive Midwesterner I am.

My resolutions got set in early December, when I was at the Mountain; so for the New Year I resolved some silly things on a piece of paper, burnt that paper, and drank it in Andre Cold Duck. Even as I wrote them I saw how silly they were, because I could do them right now--isn't that the thing? What I need to resolve is to do the work to really want the thing I already want, if you know what I mean. I'm all about goals. Now I'm supposed to be breathing, and taking in, and being soft and nice to myself and others. That's my thing for 2007: hot tubs. My year for steady chillaxin.'