Friday, January 25
It is Friday and all those dirty "shoulds" and "should nots" are running through my head like an old filmstrip I can recite from memory. I am driving home- fleeing from a not-so-perfect ending to my work day- and the pavement of the highway, the ten identical Jettas in front of me, and the sky are steel gray. The threat of heaviness & precipitation seem to be building into something bigger than the Chicagoland area. I am not in the mood for traffic as I want to keep driving in one direction and only stop for a chicken mc nuggets with barbeque hours later. Of course, as in any Chicago rush hour, there is the much anticipated and hated gaper's delay. The only thing is that today I participate.0 comments
On the frontage road that parellels I94 are about fifty highschool boys in maroon sweatshirts and ski caps running in one massive herd. I can see their breath as they exhale and I glance at the temperature: 19 degrees. There they all are and I imagine their lungs cycling through and filtering the smog us drivers toss their way. They are the only color I can see for miles and their steady speed is absolutely breathtaking. For a moment I am so enraptured that I slow down to 45 without realization. The other cars, I realize later, have done the same. We all want to be exhaling our smog out. out. out. We are so jealous of their fresh, young lungs.
I briefly thought I would try to act my age tonight and go out downtown. A bar in Wrigleyville (oh stop laughing you who know me so well) with a bunch of twenty-somethings for drinks and dancing. I stood in my bathroom trying to even look Wrigleyville so I would fit in- what with a cute top, feathered hair, eye shadow, etc. I headed out confident in my ability to be young. Instead, I pulled over my car over one block away from my house and called Elizabeth with a: "Will you go on a drive with me and let me cry for a little while?"
She met me ten minutes later in the middle of the street in front of Claude's chic apartment and handed me a large mug of handmade hot chocolate. Completely moved by this, I placed my car in park and drank a quarter of it right there while cars moved around me. I tore off my coat revealing my honestly-not-so-Wrigley outfit and clutched my mug until it warmed my hands again. "I wouldn't like you any better if you were Wrigley. And to be honest, I love who you are now," she said. I put the drive in motion after this and we zoomed through wet, sloppy falling snow up Sheridan Road where I spilled hot chocolate in my lap and every feeling I've ever had in the world. We sang our heads off to songs that we've cherished in the past and songs we love now. And that fit me just right.
Oh the angst of these bands gets us everytime as we turn up the music and sing as loud as we can: oh the Tension and Terror
posted by Jenny Friday, January 25, 2008
