Politics and Haircuts - Brady

I found a really great hairdresser in Fort Wayne. I love how she cuts my hair, and she's much cheaper than the equally awesome hairdresser I went to in Chicago. I had an experience with her the other day, though, that made me frustrated both with her and with myself.

She's only cut my hair twice before, but we had always just talked about fun stuff like family and travel. I loved hearing about her adventures. Recently, for example, she went cave exploring in Mexico and then snorkeling IN the caves. The last time I went to her, though, our comfortable conversation took a turn toward awkward.

She had stepped away for a minute to help another client, so I took the free time to listen to my voicemail. She came back and asked who had left a message (in a nice, not nosy way). I told her Kevin, my husband, had and that it was just about an interesting story he'd heard on the radio. She asked what it was, and I recounted what he had told me - that in Norway drunk driving tickets are scaled based on your income and so a man worth $30 million had gotten a ticket for $100,000.

She looked at me in the mirror, nodded knowingly, and said "You know why that is? Socialism."

Now, I am very liberal socially but don't pretend to understand economics enough to call myself a fiscal liberal. What I DO understand, for sure, is that I don't usually like talking politics in social situations, especially with people I barely know. So, I answered something like, "Yeah....it's pretty different there than it is here."

She responded, "At least for now. I just think we're moving really quickly toward socialism. I really do."

Arrrrrrrggggghhhhh. I was frustrated on several levels.

First of all, I just don't think you can have a casual conversation about these issues. Neither of us had data in front of us and we're probably getting our news from entirely different sources (which is another huge issue in and of itself). I just don't think comments like the ones she made, in a casual, social situation in which we had limited time, are very useful.

Secondly, I just didn't want to be having a political conversation! I love getting my haircut and look forward to just zoning out, having someone play with my hair for a little while, and leaving smelling like those expensive beauty shop products. I feel like the salon is the quintessential place where you should avoid politics.

Finally, I was mad at myself because I immediately thought: "I can't wait to move to Chicago where people are more liberal." In other words, "I can't wait to move somewhere where everybody thinks like me and I never have to deal with anyone I disagree with."

I don't want to be that person! I want to be able to listen to others' viewpoints and learn something from them. And I do actually think I've changed a little bit from living in Fort Wayne. For example, at first I was really judgmental about how religious people in my school district are. I even kept a folder in my email account where I'd file away any message with a religious reference in it, annoyed that teachers in a public school were talking about things like prayer and how God made sunsets beautiful. After two years, though, I can see some upsides to this philosophy. The kids are well-behaved; they stay out of trouble because their big social gatherings are with their youth groups. They are also very service-minded and are always trying to help people less fortunate than them.

Anyway, the point is that the beauty shop encounter was stressful. Relocating to Chicago will make day-to-day situations like that easier, but I don't like that I'm part of this trend of moving to places where people think like you do, talking only to people who hold your views, and getting news from such different sources we have no common ground.

Prom - Brady

As a junior homeroom teacher it was my responsibility to chaperone prom last night. I also had the very important task of making sure the king and queen crowns and memory books arrived on time. I was really excited to go. Kevin bought me a corsage, we got all dressed up, and I was hoping to get to do a little dancing!

Didn't happen. I was actually expected to work. - can you believe it? :) I had to break up kids that were dancing dirty, which I only did once and just kind of looked the other way the rest of the time. I was also disappointed that a lot of the teachers were apathetic about the whole thing and left as soon as their shift was up.

It was really neat to see kids who are goofy and kind of unkempt at school get all dressed up and excited. It was also sweet how every social clique was represented. Everyone, no matter how cool or uncool their reputations may be, found somebody to go to the dance with and seemed to be having a good time. I saw our very intellectual acting and looking valedictorian there, our rock band kids, our athletes, some of our special needs students, and even a couple of the very apathetic students I have in my homeroom who I thought would be way too hip for prom. I was also really proud of the seniors' choice of prom king and queen. They are two very, very good kids who I didn't necessarily expect to win. I had some of those moments where I felt like I could be a high school teacher forever when students would come up to me to chat, meet my husband, and shake my hand. Our school really does have a lot of nice people in it.

I'll add some pictures later of Kevin and me.

Neighbors - Brady

I always thought the concept of knowing your neighbors was nice, but today I found out that it can be NECESSARY!

Kevin and I usually drive in to work together, but he had to leave early today. Since our garage can only fit 2 cars if one is in front of the other, he very sweetly offered to pull my car out for me so I wouldn't have to go out, do it myself, and then come back in and finish getting ready.

Well, I had left my keys in the car the night before, and he locked them in when he left. My parents-in-law live close by so I called them, but all of their cars were in use.

At this point, I was panicking because I was leaving a little late as it was. It was also past the time the I could call a substitute teacher to come in for me.

I decided to go across the street and ask our neighbors, a couple about twenty years older than us who we've only hung out with once or twice, if they could help me. I rang the bell and woke up Ginny (this was 6:45 a.m.) who immediately offered:

- to drive me to work

- to let me use her car

- to give me a sweater because she was worried I would be too cold.

So my wonderful Indiana neighbors let me, a person they barely know, use their car all day.

It just hit me as I drove (very carefully) to work that sometimes the people who live close to you are the only ones who can help you out of some binds. From now on, wherever I move, I will introduce myself to my neighbors.

3rd Thing I Love About Chicago: Giordano's - Brady

Everybody who lives in Chicago has an opinion on deep-dish pizza. I will not argue that everyone will like Giordano's the best, as I do, because I can respect the subtle differences in the deep dish pizza world. Lou Malnati's, for example, has a kind of cornbready crust that I'm not a huge fan of but many people are.

I will explain why I like Giordano's so much, though:

The crust is really buttery and has the consistency almost of pie crust.

There's not TOO much tomato sauce. And the stuff that's there is good.

The cheese is salty.

Yummm. I resolve to take Kelly and Amy out for some within our first two weeks in Chicago.

2nd Thing I Love About Chicago: The Skyline - Brady

As promised...the skyline.

1st Thing I Love About Chicago: Lake Michigan - Brady

I'm starting a new list of things I love about Chicago to balance the fretting I've been doing about moving.

Note: "1st Thing I Love" doesn't mean I love it the most. It's just the 1st in the series.

Here it is..............

Lake Michigan.

I think there are two kinds of people - water people and mountain people. You just know which you are - it's the thing you want to be around all the time. If you daydream about vacationing in the Caribbean, you're a water person. If you like Colorado, you're a mountain person.

I am SO a water person. Seriously. It's so bad that if I'm anywhere near a lake, river, creek, pond, whatever, I insist on sleeping on the side of the bed that's closest to the water and keeping the windows open no matter what the weather.

When I moved to Chicago, I felt like I was on vacation every day. The city itself is, of course, fantastic, but what really did it was looking out at that beautiful ocean - lake all the time.

If you've never been, I would highly recommend spending a day at the beach in Chicago in the summer (ha ha, as opposed to spending a day at the beach in Chicago in the winter). It is still unbelievable to this Hoosier that I can sit on a beach, look one way and watch the waves roll in, then look the other way and see the best skyline in the world (Yes, it is the best. I will take up that argument with anybody and will soon add it to my series of things I love about my favorite city.)

The Chipster - Brady

I finally stopped being a bad daughter today and bookmarked a website my dad writes a column for (www.whatsnewlaporte.com). Reading it clarified for me one reason I'm nervous to embark on this transition to grad school and beyond.

My dad is exceptionally involved in La Porte, the town where he's lived his entire life, minus college. If he reads this he'll probably roll his eyes, but he actually does really cool stuff there. He knows everyone in town, he was on the Park Board and is currently involved with an organization that provides services for disabled people, he broadcasts all the high school sporting events, and he now writes the column I wrote about above. 

I'm really envious of that kind of community involvement. After college, I lived with my parents for a year in La Porte, then moved to Chicago for two years, then to Fort Wayne for another two years, and now I'm going back to Chicago for four to five. I have no idea where I'll end up after grad school. All of this moving means I just start adjusting to a place, developing my routine, getting comfortable with my friends, and then I leave. 

In La Porte, for example, I'd work out at the YMCA (where I'd invariably see somebody from high school), get cokes from McDonald's and Propel from Walgreen's, and go to Hilbish, this locally owned drugstore in town, at least once a week. I was able to meet my mom for lunch and for walks home from work and help out some Spanish-speaking families in town by translating and tutoring. In Chicago, Kevin and I went to the same farmer's market all summer, movies in Grant Park, and a great neighborhood bar called River Shannon as often as we could. I'd walk a different route to my El stop through the beautiful neighborhoods around my apartment every day and never get bored. Now, in Fort Wayne, I've got my running routes, yoga class, baseball team (Go Tincaps!), favorite restaurants, a bar (Columbia Street West) where I know I will stay up way too late dancing if I set foot in there on a Saturday night, and really, really good friends. I'm even figuring out yard work. And I'm leaving again.

At first finding new routines in new places was exciting, but at this point I'm pretty tired of all the upheaval. I would love to be in a place long enough to do the kinds of things my dad does.

Okay, enough whining about having cool opportunities to live in cool places. :) There will be plenty of time to settle down when I'm older. And I really am excited about Chicago - don't know if you can tell that from all of my belly-aching posts.