Chicago: city of few-secrets. So many loud voiced arguments on the streets.

"I ain goin home, mamma."
"Come home, mi amor, you need to go to school tomorrow."
"She wit me now. And fuck, I can turn and walk away. That what you want? But I got a good job, and I'm goin take care of her now!"
"That's right mamma. And he don even care; Papa din even notice me gone, and I ain goin back with you. I'm with my man now."

Ah, fourteen year olds.

But even the older couples argue here, the screams subsiding to semi-hushed whispers down in the subway. Not much is hidden. Not much.

Last night I was talking with N on the phone out on my balcony and a man screamed through his window, "You're being too fucking loud, bitch." The English mother came out in me. I laughed, but wanted to say, "And how would it hurt to simply rephrase that: Excuse me, but you're a little loud out there. Any way I can ask you to be quieter?" The differences of response; I don't think it would ever occur to me to call someone a bitch through a window, no matter how loud and obnoxious they were being. Plus, I've gotten used to all this noise, all the sounds of planes rising and falling, trash being collected, late night parties, etc. down in Guayaquil... so maybe the noise is something I take for granted at this point. But I do notice how it's changed its tenor here. People are noisy, but they are noisy on the streets, like arguments were just meant to happen out in the open.

The conversation above I heard while waiting at a bus stop at 3am on Belmont the other night. The bus stop was right next to a huge church with gothic stained windows, and I had selected the stop after wandering around a bit because it seemed that I would have something to look at and think about while I waited. But the conversation with the family-in-crisis kept going on and on in repetitive cadence, and I couldn't even stand standing there anymore. Very unwriterly of me, I suppose. So I went up a few blocks to the next stop, which was at the intersection of two very busy streets. And behind me, in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, a fight broke out... first two men making pathetic sweeps at each other, and then a third ran out of the liner-watchers and joined the bigger of the two. Do these fighters know how comic they are? All I could think of was that this seemed to be a satire of Fight Club. The public man-thing. The bullied-guy backed away, and pretended to reach into his pocket.

"Ah, man, he fuckin pullin a 'weapon' on us." The other two dropped away, and the evening subsided.

Was I watching? Yes, no. Some voyeurism instinct in me, but it is so short-lived. I usually just get bored. Either it is something that should cause a response in me (like rushing in to help), or it is small and none of my business. The way I figure it is that almost all of these things are none of my business. So why are they all out there like they were? Like everybody here wants an audience. So, all this psuedo-fight took place in the 30 seconds I turned around to see what the noise was, before I turned back thinking... jeesh.

Chicago is a big city, true, but it is not so intimidating anymore. Transparency seems to make the fear subside, you know.

Walking: I've been walking everywhere, walking walking, mostly because I don't know what else there is to do. I mean, I could go to movies, art-exhibits, museums, but what happens with the movement instinct? I somehow don't know what is actually "doing" if I'm not in action these days. The action of the brain just doesn't seem enough. But here I am, in the city again, with little escape-power, and I'm just going to have to figure out what there is to be done in a city to not feel trapped and hemmed in.

So, I've been walking. I get my map out, pick a spot, hop on the El and take off. Get out, wander. Look. Try to escavate some unknown meaning from all the buildings around me. I need a book. Would that help? I feel resistant.

I crossed over from UIC campus, across the river, and into the downtown area. A little fishhook of movement. The river was so good that I stood there for about a half hour looking at everything. It was one of those metal grating bridges that looks like cheese-grater meets architexture. Every time a car came onto it, my whole sidewalk shook, and I welcomed the dizziness as I looked down on the small little stream where just a couple of ducks were swimming. Some greenery, some underbrush, some garbage bags. To the west, train tracks and the comforting holler of their comings and goings. To the east, temporary greenspan and then highway and buildings. To the south, a big industrial bridge and some smokestacks. My back to the north, where all the cars crossed over the grating and shook me all over. At one point, the bridge shook so bad I thought I was going to fall off and so I looked: three continental buses surrounded by police car escorts. Who was passing and shaking me? Did they see me quivering on the side, the results of their passing? Must be a politician, I thought to myself.

Seasons: And so far, all the wind on my walks... warm warm. I haven't been wearing coats or anything. But now, the cold is setting in. Out my window, the tips of the leaves are starting to brown. Every day I can watch the radial progress inwards, the slow tamping down of season. I'm really enjoying it. Right now, I'm sure I'll change my mind, but the coming of the cooler weather seems a welcome newness. A new sensation I haven't felt in awhile.

Dancing: I went out dancing and here is not super different than there. The music was pretty good: Bjork, Fischerspooner, Techno Be-bop, you know. And me riding the sounds like bucking the bull. Feels really good. I went to this one spot and holed up in the corner behind a guy in a red shirt with dreadlocks. He was fabulous, smiling all the time at the music, and there to move and watch. So I felt safe around him, an accomplishment because it took me scraping up all my guts to go there by myself... And there were all these guys -- some told me they were Mexican -- standing next to me, edging in, grinding slowly, and the second their hands find my waist and they start smothering, I'm out of there, off the dance floor again. Sometimes it makes me feel like a pea being popped out of its pod.

I love all the gay boys, who inevitably make a point of telling me that I'm "beautiful" just because I'm out there, obviously dancing to dance and not giving a shit anymore what the socio-political movements are in the thoughts of everyone around me. That is, I love watching other people dance, I like seeing them slip into their bodies. Finding different rhythmns than me. But I don't want to talk... the sensation of everybody moving is more than right for me. And yeah, this is beautiful if we needed to tag a word to it.

Grad student parties: So, I'm finally getting out there a bit. I don't have to force myself exactly, but I do have to calm myself down once I'm there. I'm very excited about meeting all these people, but I have this type of too-heightened (self-) consciousness about what's going on around me when I'm with all of these folks. I'm curious to get their stories, but they seem so young. Okay okay, they are young, but that's not what I mean. I mean, the place that they are in their lives. So many freshy-faced from undergraduate, and I try to remember that space and it was so changing and different from where I am now. I have not been in undergraduate school for 7 years now. And those 7 years have been so many lifetimes. But hey, everybody is different, and so I'm just trying to listen more, hear things. I feel outsider though. Maybe we all do, I don't know?

And I feel this horrible torn instinct to both protect myself and to throw myself out there all open, when it's probably something in the middle that I should be shooting for. I was talking to A last night and she is also returning to school, and expressed this same impatience I'm feeling about making friends. "I want friends right now," she said. And damn if I didn't feel relieved to know that I'm not the only intense impatient one out there. But what I've been telling myself is that I can't subscribe to the Cup-o-Noodles concept of friendship: just add water and have a meal. I have to wait. Be slow. For myself, too.

So, I've been going to these get-togethers and talking loudly to cover up my loneliness. I think I come across as arrogant and brassy, which is an interesting sensation for me. I start thinking about masks... whether I'm now wearing one.

Read something the other day that said we never get the essences at the beginning. At the beginning, we emphasize the commonalities so we can fit in. And so it is always in the middle that we get the real... when we start feeling comfortable enough to express the parts of us that don't fit. Funny - this theory was about cinematic time, and was also about what you get with the historical process of new media, but it felt just about right about that "story" written over and over again.

But I feel so few commonalities really. That of language-love, I guess. Is that enough? I think I'm the only non city-girl here. I think I'm the only one...

I like everyone though. Not anyone who rubs me the wrong way (they'd probably become a best friend). I got into an elongated conversation about the perceived mind-body split with a paralegal named after an All Creatures Great & Small character. A funny conversation; I felt like I could antagonize him all evening if need be. Probably a result of being Big T's friend -learning the lawyerly buttons. That is, how people who have been to law school just love to argue circles and all you have to do is provide the curve. I also got to dance a little groove to Outcast - very interesting to see who jives and who's shy. I still think the girl who looks like N could be a good friend, but damn is she ever reserved. And I'm not sure how much prying I'm in for. (too tired, maybe... would like to be met sometimes). And another girl who has a blog... I've looked it up (she's more generous with her url than I am), and she's pretty funny. A culinary giant. I'm thinking about linking to her, but I'd open my blog to being read by those I'm surrounded by, something I've always been resistant to (I like to be openly gossiping and say what I think without fear of reprisal or hurt feelings). I'll have to decide. And there are a bunch of guys who talk quite a bit about baseball, pretty nice fellows. Always a place I can escape to when the conversation turns to shoes and Renee Zellweiger. So, we'll see. Possibilites are always... something.

But I think I've been spending more time trying to convince myself that it will also be Okay if I just don't make friends and instead focus on my work. Isolation isn't the end of the world, is it? Something important for me to feel inside, so that I don't start feeling desperate. Desperate for connection is a bad place to be. So I've been honing the happiness, walking, forcing my head to stay on track and not slip off again... I've come too far to start walking backwards again.

Anyhow, I think that's about it for now... assuredly there will be more Smatterings later though.