Labor Day Spring Cleaning

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The dust that lined the baseboards had been building its home in the quiet darkness for almost four years. It feathered in the humid summer as air forced its way around the curves and corners powered by a box fax across the room, but it never lost its resolve. On Labor Day, it let loose. It made its way into my nostrils and lungs, stuck to the skin of my sweat-moistened stomach as I dragged out piles of unmatched socks and empty shoeboxes from the depths of my almost walk-in closet, clad only in a neon yellow tie-died sports bra and basketball shorts, on another steamy Chicago end-of-summer day.

Marathon training had been the impetus of a 12-mile run on Saturday morning and a 16-mile bike ride on Sunday afternoon, but I am a rule-follower, and Mondays are rest days. Overwhelmed by the impotence of a Monday off of work with no run to run, I decided at some point in the early afternoon that my bedroom closet would be the day's project. I could write or draw dinosaurs (two actually purposeful activities), but I craved a physical activity maybe to avoid a mental one.

I went through my closet, hanger by hanger, and removed some of my favorite shirts, shoving them deep into a donation bag, feeling reckless and irritated at my lifelong nostalgia. I decided I was out of my sneaker phase, replacing four pairs of infrequently worn, seriously worn-in shoes with a few sets of high heels on the shelf above my head.

Sneezing and sweating, I cleaned.  The computer blared indie dance tunes from the front room and the cat stayed safely hidden away from the commotion. I made a new space for the shoes that lived mostly in the hallway, and the stack of wicking shirts that had found a home on the floor. I found coins and bobby pins and, for some reason, three cylinders of Smarties. 

I imagined moving to my next place, and a shared closet with my girlfriend that wasn’t overrun by my clutter. I imagined loving my home so much that I would care too much to somehow let delicious packs of pastel colored candies get loose and live in the shadows of my GAP collared shirts.

The Great Closet Clean of 2013 was part girl-who-can’t-sit-still, part physical exercise, and part ode to commitment. In the weeks that precede yet another birthday, I want to continue to grow. I want to prove to myself that I am not done evolving. I also don’t want to end up on an episode of Hoarders.

Edward Hammerhands?

I love my apartment, but my building is almost 150 years old and my appliances might actually be even older. Especially be fridge/freezer combo.  When I moved in, Moses' baby picture (basket and all), was stuck to the refrigerator door with fossilized tree sap. I found an abacus in the freezer. This thing is old.

Its also not grown-up sized. I don't know if Americans were between 13 and 18 inches shorter 100 years ago, but a race of mini-Chicagoans occupying the Lakeview neighborhood when my building was raised would really be the only legitimate reason for the minute size of my fridge/freezer combo.

Surprisingly, this is the "after" shot.

I'm not ageist or sizeist, even regarding appliances, but I am functionist. I mean, a fridge is meant to keep food and drinks cool and a freezer is meant to keep food frozen (and liquor crisp). So on this level I discriminate against this "machine" on the basis of not-workingness.

In my fridge things spoil or freeze, in my freezer the ice wall creeps around and engulfs all of my food items and, yet, some how ice cream still melts and meat spoils. Usually I just get around this by buying very little food and eating it quickly before the ancient fridge beast has time to claim it as a victim. Or I buy no food and eat Subway twice a day.

Sometimes the massive encroaching iceberg in my freezer makes me flip my grid and get a little crazy. On that special day, once a year, I calmly walk over to my tool box, carefully remove the hammer from its hammer-shaped slot, and return to the kitchen. I open the freezer door, and like a coked up Edward Scissorhands I swing the back of my hammer at the ice wall over and over again with all my might. As ice chips and chunks fly at my face, body and kitchen walls, I break a sweat and begin to see the edges of what might be a bag of frozen corn or a bottle of Jagermeister. 

Eventually, my bare feet are covered in an inch of ice on my kitchen floor, and the freezer looks more like a storage space for food and less like the ice-cave of a Yeti.

It most likely still won't freeze food, but at least I feel better about it.

Is it Crevice or Crevass?

There is a crevice between my pressboard counter-top and my aging, sloping gas stove into which I constantly drop bits of food that are impossible to retrieve.

A blueberry muffin flavored frosted mini wheat.
A c-shaped sliver of fresh green pepper.
A single piece of wheat bread, slathered in mustard.

I’ve come to think of this crevice as a metaphor.

Some days, the lost food item is a metaphor for acceptance – a reminder to accept the things I cannot change and …whatever the rest of that inspirational phrase is.

As I watch a portion of my meal disappear into the darkness, I think to myself, "what will be, will be." As that rogue piece of aged white cheddar takes flight from the blade of my knife in the direction of the black hole of snack foods I know it will be lost – I find myself feeling thankfulness. I am thankful for the remainder of the cheese left on my 6x8inch yellow cutting board.

I realize that there is some sacrifice coupled with all pleasure.

As I feel this realization, I can feel the Catholic indoctrination of my youth flexing its muscles. I ask myself, “Do I really think that sacrifice is unavoidable??” That’s weird.

Other days, when I’m feeling less positive or less at peace, the crevice is more enemy than it is teacher. I’m sure it’s punishing me, or trying to push me over the edge. Taking from me. Inspiring me to fear a a future odor that might radiate from its depths.

I don’t know how such a small opening can consume so many perishables. It’s like there is a magnet in there intent on destroying me.

When I move away from this apartment, I hope no one checks the crevice for remnants of my residence. I can’t imagine that whatever beast the primordial crevice ooze has created can have good intentions.

The Post-Storm Commute

Chicago had an eleven minute storm on Monday. I wasn’t actually timing it, but the time between the moment that the brightness in my 7:30am apartment slipped from baby shower to gay bar like someone leaned on the sliding track lighting switch after too many cocktails, to the time I was standing soaking wet on the train platform, watching the sun peak out from behind the receding clouds, wasn’t long enough to defrost a chicken breast.

The rain shot sideways like a compressed garden hose in a summer backyard. Its trajectory rendered umbrellas useless and spurred joggers and commuters alike to hit full speed on their run for cover. It was messy.

This storm not only soaked the space inside my open apartment windows and my already sloppy clothes, it also wreaked some serious havoc on Chicago public transportation (and left 852,000 without power).

I made a mad dash from my front door to the train station one block away: pants rolled up, golf umbrella held in front of my body like a shield. (I later heard from the internetz that my sister and her little ones got caught it the nastiness as well.) I climbed the stairs to the train platform, and was notified by our state-of-the-art, and often inaccurate, Scrolling Time Arrival Notification Marquee that the next train to my destination apparently didn’t exist. There were other trains in 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, and 14 minutes, but, alas, my train had disappeared into the abyss.

Thankful that the 11 minute storm was over, I stood on the platform reading Charlotte’s Web, recognizing my total lack of control over the situation. My only possible plan of action was to stand on the platform and wait for the train. It would not help to pace, or glance at my watch, or post all over Facebook how annoying this was. Just wait.

And I did.

And after a few minutes, the marquee announced that my train would arrive in 17 minutes. Wow. 17 minutes. In commuter time, that’s like saying, “You’re train will arrive right after Harry Potter 9 hits theatres.”

This delay would certainly cause me to be a few minutes late to work, but no big deal. I read until it arrived, standing patiently with countless other soaked individuals. It eventually arrived. On the train I noticed the extent of this short storm's damage – trees fallen everywhere, backed up traffic, and an extremely slow train pace. I don’t know how many horsepower an L train has, but this one was for certain being pulled by a single donkey.

After about 40 minutes, my train arrived at its first scheduled stop, approximately 5 stops and 10 minutes from my office, and the conductor politely let us know that this train would go no further. And, it wasn’t just this train whose travel was arrested – it was all trains. A hidden, metallic voice intercom’d to us to exit the platform and catch the buses to our various destinations.

In the crowd of tardy, dripping wet commuters, I shuffled along looking for this mythical bus that would take me to work. I glanced at my watch and noted that I was already about 20 minutes late and not quite near it yet.

I eventually located the correct bus, lucky to watch people push and shove their way beyond its maximum capacity from a safe distance. I waited. Another bus arrived with similar results.

The third bus had space for me, although the space was a sliver standing between a couple of heavy breathers. We inadvertently spooned. Er, at least, I can say the spooning on my part was not a choice. The bus navigated the fallen trees, traffic and stop signs, and after a while came to a full stop, swung its mighty doors open, and allowed us cattle to escape our transport and scatter off into the free world.

By the time I arrived at work, close to 10 am, my clothes were actually dry and I was in a decent mood.

In a city like Chicago, sometimes an 11 minute storm means a 2 hour commute.

The War of the Window Unit

Because Washington, DC is built on a swamp (with the fill in remnants of drudging the Potomac River to increase its depth and create a more viable shipping industry for the region) the summer months are a hot, wet, buggy mess. It's one bad combination - the humidity of heaven's waiting room, Florida, and the blurry chemical and exhaust-filled thickness typical of an urban concrete jungle.

For residents, one moment of relief from living in the government’s very own inferno is that most rental properties come complete with air conditioning. This fact came as a delightful surprise when I moved from Chicago to the District in 2005. In Chicago, A/C is found less frequently, and the War of the Window Unit is familiar to Cubs and Sox fans alike. There is some dreaded weekend waiting quietly all spring for all of us when we have to dig those units out from storage and attempt to move, lift and secure the 40 lb beasts into a window space as ill fitting as the best pair of ladies khakis.

The inevitably poor fit results in the use of half of a roll of duct tape, and the MacGyvering of common household items to fill in gaps and to secure the beast for the summer. One of the challenges includes completing this task on a tight rope, or, rather, over a busy street some 2,3 or 4 stories up. Passersby are often blessed with falling lead-tainted paint chips from the windows of century old buildings, stagnant water dripping from the unit’s last use the previous summer, and probably an array of curse words falling from the lips of the installer. Another challenge is finding an appropriately sized item to wedge between the heavy-in-the-rear unit and the window ledge.

Last summer, I helped my girlfriend duct tape a perfectly sized piece of her best Tupperware, an item which was certainly being groomed for the most important role in its plasticine life. Weeks after witnessing her ingenuity, I tried to use the same method, only to find some of my Tupperware was too big, some was too small, a few pieces were too feeble - none was just right. I then had a moment of my own brilliance.

Searching the apartment for an item that could weather the summer weather, and most likely something that would not survive the feat, I remembered the entire drawer I kept of old CD cases and booklets (a collection that for certain is the beginning of a hoarder’s existence). I selected some cases that I could easily sacrifice, duct taped them together and crammed the creation under the weight of my dangerously wobbly air conditioning unit. Perfection. The success of this project is only heightened by the fact that from the street level, its extremely clear that Fiona Apple, All 4 One, and Green Day are working tirelessly day and night to keep pedestrians safe from being crushed by my window unit.

Today on my way to work, I saw from the L a unit held up by two soup cans. Pretty clever.

Have you ever had to fight the War of the Window Unit? Who won?