curtains.

I really hate the shower curtain in my bathroom. It's a completely irrational thing to "really hate," but I do. It looks like something out of a GQ magazine photoshoot. Like, ok, well, just go with me here: camera pans from ceiling to floor, the hot guy in a man tank top is posing mid-shower exit. He shouldn't be wearing a shirt at all. What's he hiding? There's that sly grin. The "I'm hiding one of my numerous badass scars from my life as a bullfighter." The air is heavy, thick with condensation. Everything's sticking to everything else, but this model's eyes are stuck on you, desperate housewife. The soft mauve, light brown and random golden strands of this shower curtain encase this model, the curtain decides it's more of a cape. And thus the tone of this Gillette ad. Oh, how shiny every other thread of curtain is — that sort of metallic sheen.

When I got it I must have been thinking, "This is adult looking," nevermind that it sort of has the divorced-male-looking-for-tang quality about it. Whatever, "It's on sale!" I should note here that it's incredibly out of character for me to buy retarded things just because they're on sale. Part of this has to do with my three day rule, in that I only buy things that I don't really need until three days have past. This has both hindered and helped me, and I recommend it to other poor people like me. I've billed it as the Sensible Shopper Technique.

But this curtain. This Bed, Bath and Beyond curtain that I bought with my mom with one of those 20 percent off coupons they send every three weeks. This curtain that's followed me around for three apartments. This curtain that I always intend to replace with a cutesy white curtain with black cursive letters on it that spell things in French, or have toille farmers or the alphabet or the name for "bathtub" and "shower" in a bunch of different languages on it. This curtain was so cheap. And the curtain I want isn't.

Because nothing is a better value than just keeping the thing that you already have. It's sort of a depressing mentality, and I'm glad it really only has to do with household items.

It's a terrible thing to have grown up frugal. There's no justification for things like buying a new curtain. It's almost like buying new picture frames...which is stupid. Replacing things that aren't broken is foreign to me. Replacing things that are broken sometimes even takes a push. (Shoes are disqualified from any sort of shopping rule.)

So, I guess I'll just keep it until my roommate Cynthia accidentally burns it with her straightener. Then I'll have to get a new one. Until then, I'll just be dreaming of what our bathroom could look like. Sigh.

The shower curtain in question. Again, I know it's irrational how much I hate it. I know.

out of towners

The greatest moment I've had as a Chicagoan came a few years ago. Now that I'm entering my twilight years I can reflect back on such trivialities (,she said, strutting about her office in too-high heels). I was living in Lincoln Park in what can only be described as a closet with my dear friend Alli. We had just painted an accent wall in the common space. It was supposed to be blue, but ended up being a deep purple. I told people we meant to do this: Purple out our room. We were very "hip" and "urban" then. Our bungalow sat just up the street from the Pritzker's new mega-mansion, and just down the way from Lincoln Park High School on Burling Avenue, off Armitage. We had arrived.

Alli and I moving on our last day together in front of the Purple Wall.

I was too poor and cheap to pay for a parking spot in our back lot then, so I'd taken to parking three blocks away across the street from an elementary school, thus successfully dodging getting ticketed or towed on the regular. Slowly, but surely I was on my way to becoming a neighborhood icon. Brigid: The girl who didn't get tickets. This last bit isn't true. I got one ticket eventually and no one ever nicknamed me. It'd be great if they had though. I wanted to look like I was part of the neighborhood. A real Chicago broad, if you will.

Anyway, I thought I looked young and cool, beating the system one day at a time. This can be cross-referenced with a piece of paper I found in an old book where I scribbled: Trick the system because it tricks me.

Side note: I didn't set our Internet up for three months, instead making a name for myself as the girl who drank coffee, applied for jobs and stole Internet from Borders on North Avenue. (I feel bad about this. Borders is now known for being the first national chain bookstore to go out of business by way of homeless using the bathroom and post-graduates reading books on the floor as if it were a library. (As if you didn't know this last part.))

Then add to all of this how awesome Alli and I looked taking to the road on our bicycles — her's was a sweet as pie blue road bike, and mine was the chunky Trek mountain bike my sister Colleen had ridden throughout junior high. I was clearly not the cooler between the pair of us. All this would change though, soon, little snail, soon. One glimmering Spring afternoon, the world saw me and Alli as we saw ourselves. It came in the form of a question.

We were walking to our "spot," a Chinese restaurant three blocks up Armitage from Halsted that we'd been to only one other time. I was wearing gym shorts which basically said, "No, I actually don't give a fuck," and Alli was wearing a nondescript shirt you get at things like orientation or camp. I am 98 percent sure we were skipping. And then it happened.

"Can you tell us how to get to DePaul?"

Freeze frame, mid-air-skip. Shock. Awe. More shock.

We had done it! We had finally shown the world we belonged. The bouncer finally let us in! We knew where things and stuff and places and apartments and the lake were located. And it had happened when we looked our most uncoolest. We were sloppy slobs, rollin' around in the sun on an early evening week night.

The honeymoon phase of our tenure as city dwelling direction givers goes on until this day. For me, it's in the Uptown neighborhood, and for Alli it's Manhattan. We've got it together, mastering one city after another sans map. It's a feeling I have come to love, feeling like I belong, but nothing compares to this first time when someone else decided I belonged too.

Alli and I somehow found a goat commune in Wicker Park one fine Saturday

Millenium Park She & Him concert/BrigidAlli Cookie Festival

L'Histoire de Brigid.

"For the last 365 days I've felt nothing but failure.

For a brief stint of time I felt successful. Very brief. Late summer fading into fall, things were alright.

First job seemed to be going well. The answer to my prayers, I suppose.

But, just like anything and everything else, it too faded.

I am very self-conscious, not very self-aware, and extremely self-loathing.

I am 23."

I found this in my drafts. My very first memoir. Quite dramatic. "Summer fading into fall"? Give me a break, Bridge. It's from almost three years ago. In a lot of ways I am exactly this same individual, down to my age. While I'm acutely aware of the fact that I am not in fact 23 years old, it's shocking to me how quickly a year or three goes when reflecting.

There's a post I wrote in 2009 recounting all the things I'd accomplished over the course of the year since graduation. [HERE] Actually, it was a great exercise in realizing the level of productivity one can be capable of when desperately searching for a job.

Perhaps I'll do it again someday (look for a job and write a list about it later, that is), maybe when I write a real memoir. So far this year I've read 10 books, at least three of which are memoirs from comediennes (and obviously the Hunger Games Trilogy, please). Right now I'm finishing up Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me."

(The title is a thought I often have, most readily exemplified by a text I sent one Miss Allison Arnold a few days ago: "I hate this. I have no friends. I just want to grab a cocktail and hang out." Alli moved to New York. She did this secretly. Sorry I'm telling everyone*, Alli. Don't be mad.)

*Everyone equals the random explosion of readers I've gained in the last three days since restarting this blog Monday.

The one good thing about finding this odd draft, that I'm glad I didn't post at the time because it's just too Debbie Downer and would have worried my mom, is that while I haven't changed a ton, the ways in which I have are so great. Yes, I still feel like a failure sometimes, but I have a job that I like for the most part, have the Grrr, have Tim, have an agent (ie the beginnings of a career!) and have become more self-aware than self-conscious. Progress.

And on the even further upside, in three years I'll still be in my twenties. Hooray!

nordstroms

Do these legs creep you out as much as they freak me out? Why so many weird angles. Is it the same model's leg poorly pasted in? Who does Nordstrom Rack's graphic design work? Are these real legs? When did they approve this image? Did someone make a mistake in approving this image? Can I donate to Nordstrom's Design fund so they can maybe get some nonshit designer to sell shoes? This makes my heart hurt. What is happening? I'm tired. I need a sandwich and a snack after looking at this many colors in one 2 in x 2 in freeze frame. Maybe a frosty from Wendy's.

Nordstrom's is having a sale. And these creepy legs are its messenger.

Reality Hot Dogs

You hear about places that are supposed to be these cultural gems. Like, "You haven't lived until you've blah blah blahed in this city!"

"What? You're crazy. You've never been to the top of the Sears Tower? But you've lived in Chicago for three years!"

"Oh, my God, you haven't seen the sea lions in Fisherman's Wharf? But you've lived in San Francisco for three years!"

"You've got to be kidding. You went to China and skipped the Great Wall! You nut, you. You've been teaching English there for three years!"

Well, today I did one of these "You haven't lived until's," and it was just alright. After taking my friend Lee to get his Illinois drivers license, we decided to hit up Hot Doug's on California and Roscoe. It's a hot dog joint. Neither of us had been, but of course the word of mouth had reached ours since we took up residence in Chicago.

We almost passed it, the restaurant, that is.

It's got signs on the wall in prime colors. A bunch of weird hot dog combos. And bottomless pop. But it wasn't amazing. It was just -ing. I think the best part about it is their slogan that pulsates through the restaurant: "There are no two finer words in the English language than 'Encased Meats,' my friend."

Meh, I take it back. My favorite part was getting two full cups of diet coke. It doesn't take a lot to please me. Hype simply didn't live up to reality.

Summer in the City.

Montrose Avenue is a bitch of a street. It's relatively nondescript for most of it. A cemetery spans the periphery of the south side of the street, and west of Clark there's a handful of restaurants for a bit, then nothing but homes, highway and more homes. I live East of Clark, known for gang violence and harboring the Wilson redline stop.

But something's taken over this what I'd assumed was a road less traveled. Signs. Orange postings with cruel words taking away my right to parking close to my door. No, sir-ee-bob, you may not park here. Not for 2 months between the hours of 6AM and 2:30PM. If that's not bullshit I don't know what is. A city worker working at 6AM? Please.

Then the unlikely happened. Like unwanted church bells clanging on Sunday morning, ringing in the ears of an unsuspecting homeless man taking up residence between the front doors, today, a Monday, the gongs and clangs of a jackhammer and a monster machine began to peel off the skin of street once resting safely outside my window. 6AM. This is happening.

I slammed the window shut. My bedroom swiftly turned into an incubator as my fan had to be turned off too. It makes a wallowing bird-type noise that I hate. Usually the wind noise overrides it, so I keep it on, but with the glass down, no can do.

The worst part about the whole thing? The way my body will vibrate as I attempt to ride my road bike down this dismantled road for the next two months. Or how I'll never be able to find a good parking spot. Or the simple act of opening my window on a warm summers day will illicit the violent wail of a woman in childbirth. How I hate the sound of construction.

really?

this is not what i mean by famous, successful and wealthy.

Let's call lemons, Lemons.

The longer I'm out of college, the further I am from applying for the jobs I secretly always hoped I'd get. The thing about secrets is they shouldn't be kept. That's why 'it all comes out in the wash' is a saying.

But I've kept it a secret for too long. So long that it seems I'll never get to where I hope to land. It's a frustrating world enough without me getting in the way of myself.

Fuck it. I hope to make lots of money by carrying out a successful career in film and television. [See! I'm trying.]

I mean, everyone's working for something. Just, what?

A 401K. A car they bought themselves without the help of momsy and popsicle. Whatever your white horse is, I suppose.

But I always thought I'd be working towards this version of success: wealthy, famous, beautiful. My desires are cliché. I know. And back in the day when I believed in God with all I had, and hoped to 'change' the world, I'd look at those adjectives, the WFB, we'll call it, and think myself petty out-loud, but knew in reality that's what I wanted.

I could go on as many mission trips and church lock-ins, and all that shit, but really, I just wanted to play the quirky best friend in a chick-flick. So kill me.

Now, as 26 is pending, all but too close off, I'm kicking myself for not accepting my natural inclination for attention and hope to be noticed. (I'm not saying believing in God is bad, or trying to make the world a better place is for morons. Please, I'm just saying do what you gotta do.)

And I know where it comes from, this attention whore inside me. It's that I grew up in a family of eight, or that I'm a middle child, or that I'm a redhead, or that I already command attention with my frank attitude. Pick A, B, C, D, whatever. We're in business.

Either way. We all spend too much time waiting. And, I can't wait anymore. I have to. There are too many people who, for a long time, knew what they wanted and didn't care if it was construed as, or actually is, vain. I just wish I were higher up on this imagined Successful Life List. Or at least had a famous uncle or something. Get this girl a mentor.

Who knows. This could be the post that changed my life. Doubt it. Let's call lemons, Lemons. It's a start.