so this is winter

This was taken from my front window, looking out on the sunrise, the tree missing its leaves, and the buildings down the street. Cute neighborhood, no?

There is 100% chance of snow tomorrow. I don't know how they can predict something 100% when they have about a 20% success rate when predicting Chicago's weather... nevertheless, I have my snow boots on and I'm ready to go. A California girl can't afford to be caught in a "wintry mix" without her snow boots on.

mid-life crisis

I've been thinking about this guy a lot today.

Not because he's handsome or inspiring -- I only have enough room for one handsome, inspiring boyfriend in my life -- but because what he's doing is radical. He's traveling around North America doing a different job every week for a year. He's a hippie -- he's sleeping on people's couches and he has dreadlocks. He somehow doesn't need money -- he's doing all these jobs and receiving no pay, the companies are only making a suggested donation to a charity. He's a really a fictional character in a sense, an online personae, yet his mission is very real: to find a job that he loves.

Isn't this what we all want to do with our lives? Work at a job we love and consequently never work a day in our lives? This is why we go to college, major in what interests US not what interests our parents, this is why we head into our adult lives hopeful and starry-eyed. But how many people actually have the luxury of finding and doing what they love? I, for one, feel stuck. I need to pay the bills (not to mention that I need something else to put on my resume), so I need to stay where I am. It's not ideal, it's not my dream job, but it's something. There are so many jobs in this world, but the vast majority are closed, meaning unless you have the experience and the skills, you can't hope to get the job. For now, I'm a journalist. I'm not even the journalist I think I'd like to be, but I'm doing what I'm doing, blindly following the career path in my head that may or may not actually work with my life. Maybe I don't want to commit the hours to my chosen profession. What then? And what about those who are stuck somewhere less strategic? Like a temp job or a secretarial job; something they couldn't do forever? What do they do?

I've always thought I might like book publishing or advertising or editing or even public relations: I know how to edit and read and deal with people, but without real experience, I can't even hope to break into these fields. My perfect job could be waiting somewhere I will never get to because I chose to focus on newspaper internships and jobs in college, not get experience in every possible job I think I might like to work someday. I also had to pick a major, and in order to ease my mind of the gravity of my decision when I was a senior in high school and a freshman and sophomore in college, I told myself that it didn't really matter what I picked as long as I liked it. But it did in a sense because majors automatically close a lot of doors. I've also been thinking that maybe I should have become an architect. In order to break into that field I would need to become a student again, study for years, go into major debt, and again, send out my resume in hopes that someone, anyone, will hire me. Or maybe I should become a cook: go to culinary school and join my sisters in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the grand opening of our new restaurant Lindsey'S Peach. Or was it Linsapa's (pronounced: Linseppe's)?

So here I am, my peers beside me. We're motivated, smart, and we have college degrees: but all we see when we look at our options for now and in the future are closed doors. Sean Aiken (the man that prompted my rant today) is 36 weeks into his adventure, and nothing really has struck a chord with him besides his job in advertising or raising funds for cancer research: perhaps not entirely related to his degree in business administration. Of course, he could write a book now, become a travel book writer, start a T-shirt company, or whatever because people know his name, but even the man who has "tried every job" can't identify definitively the one he loves. Come to think of it, I know very few people who like their jobs without a "but"... maybe Juli and maybe my uncle. Maybe it depends on the type of person you are. Would I have said even last year that I liked my job at the Daily Nexus, when now I look back with such longing?

My argument is unraveling at the seams. I could go back to school and become an architect, I could even go back to school and become a doctor, or a teacher, or anything I wanted. I, like most of my peers with college degrees, have that luxury. I realize not everyone does. I think my problem right now is just deciding one way or the other, and at some point giving up on everything else. I don't have to do that yet, but I just hope that when the time comes I feel like I have landed somewhere worthwhile.

ruby slippers

I come home to California for Thanksgiving and I barely step foot outside. Even so, I know what the air will feel like if I do and I can picture all the local landmarks. Things don't change, and even though I haven't been here for close to six months, I can still picture my surroundings so effortlessly. The ocean and beaches to the West. The beach side communities, Camp Pendleton, and later Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to the North. The city of San Diego, the harbor, and Mexico to the South. The desert and mountains to the East.

In Chicago I don't have such an effortless connection to my surroundings. The gridded streets confuse me sometimes, and I don't know which way is North, South, West, or East (well, generally, the lake) and what the landmarks in those directions look like. I don't know what the air will feel like when I step outside or how strong the wind will me: I'm chained to my thermometer. I don't know what happens when you drive past the city limits and reach the part of Illinois that grows the corn and soybeans that we all eat. It's a black hole, most of it, and the surrounding states are even a darker shade of black.

After four years in Santa Barbara I had a pretty good idea of my surroundings. But I don't know if I'll ever get to that point in Chicago: It's such a huge, mysterious city with sprawling suburbs, that I don't know if I'll ever see these places I hear about in the news and from Chicago natives. But until then, I'm not sure I'll ever feel like I'm home.

I am not alone

Chicago is the most caffeinated U.S. city

Thanks, Dad, for looking out for me.

I am happy to report that I have not had caffeine for the last two days and have not gotten a headache. It's a mystery to me, but I'm not complaining.

the red pen

The two subscribers to the World Jewish Digest who also read a la deriva won't be getting their December copies for another few weeks... but when you do, please note that the Uganda brief that has my name on it meant to read like below. The other readers of my blog should save themselves the trouble and not bother to subscribe:

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Much to the dismay of the people standing in the back of the room, those who were lucky enough to find seats kept filtering in and out of the back door to the bathroom down the hall. At the front of the room stood Aaron Kintu Moses, director of education and acting spiritual leader of the Abayudaya, or Jewish, community in Uganda. He was proudly discussing the new water tanks that held, for most of the residents, their first taste of running water.

The sounds of screaming children wafting through the open door from the middle school Halloween dance down the hall did not facilitate a perfect understanding of Moses’ strongly accented English, but the photos circulating around the room—of children excitedly using the new spigot to wash their hands—filled in the blanks. Moses, clad in a green dress shirt, a red tie, and a blue Bucharian kippah, wore a face of equal elation and pride as he spoke erev Shabbat to Congregation Hakafa at a community center in Winnetka, Ill.— an affluent suburb of Chicago—about his community of 800 Jews in central-eastern Uganda. In addition to limited running water during the rainy season, the community now has five synagogues, a primary school and a secondary school.

“This is so good,” Moses said to an overfilled room of assorted ages and backgrounds. “It is so important to have brothers and sisters together from all around the world, to come together as Jews.”

The Winnetka visit was only one stop on Moses’ month-long speaking tour at Reform and Conservative congregations around the United States. He hopes to educate fellow Jews on the history of the Abayudaya, collect contributions to help the population grow and advertise for the fifth annual two-week long trip to visit the community, which will take place next month.

Although the Abayudaya have been practicing Jewish customs learned from military and political leader Semei Kakungulu since 1919, 300 of them underwent formal halakhic conversion to Judaism in 2002. The conversion was conducted by Rabbi Howard Gorin of Congregation Tikvat Israel, a Conservative synagogue in Rockville, Md., with a team of other conservative rabbis. Gorin said this trip was his first to Africa, but he has since been back to Uganda, and will soon visit the Jewish communities in Nigeria.

“One of my biggest fears was that this would be a nominally Jewish community,” said Gorin, “But this was an organic Jewish community—they were so powerful in their commitment and it even more powerful because they were practicing in Uganda.” He says the conversion was especially important to the Abayudaya because served as a formal introduction to the Jewish community worldwide.

Moses discovered his own Judaism during the reign of President Idi Amin (1971-1978), a ruler who was notoriously unaccepting of other religions and ethnicities. He said people, such as his father, were jailed and harassed for being Jewish. Moses himself was punished by his teachers for not going to school on Shabbat as he was required to.

“I would be lashed by my teachers because I wouldn’t go to school on Shabbat,” Moses said. “I also saw my father be put in prison because he built a Sukkah—the government thought he was building a place for rebels to meet.”

During this time period, the number of Jews in Uganda fell from 3,000 to 300. Following Amin’s reign, however, Moses helped to build the community to its present day numbers. Today, Moses said, Jewish children go to school alongside the local Christians and Muslims, praying in synagogues made of mud and shells.

Following a brief oneg—celebration—the Winnetka congregants left their makeshift synagogue in the community house made of wood and drywall, wallpaper and flowered curtains, and got in their cars to drive home.

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This is what should have printed, but due to an extreme error in judgment, a complete lack of respect, and my inability to fight back, an atrocity actually appears on the page. Embarrassingly enough, "raise awareness" actually appeared in the edit: I tried to edit it out.

I sometimes wonder why I care.

harmless addiction

It's 3:45 and I'm drinking my cup of pomegranate white tea as fast as I can, hoping I can catch the faint wisps of pain brewing in my forehead before they become an aching caffeine headache that can't be cured with pain killers.

I knew this would become a problem a few weeks ago when I was looking forward to that soothing and awakening cup of tea each morning when I arrived at work. And now that it's gotten cold, it's extra nice to hold that warm cup, swirling with (fake) milk, and check my email.

But Saturday I didn't have my customary cup of caffeinated tea in the morning, and was struck with a pounding headache at 4:00 p.m. that didn't go away until I broke down and had a cup of English breakfast tea with dinner.

I don't like addictions. I don't like withdrawal headaches. But I love tea. And though decaf herbal tea is delicious at times, I prefer the whites and blacks and greens that usually come with an added dose of caffeine. It's not that I need the caffeine (though my addiction insists that I do), it's that I like the warm liquid in my hands and in my belly on a cold day.

edit: you can write but you can't edit edit

This morning when I turned on my computer I was greeted by an unknown symbol in the lower right hand corner of my web browser. A cloud with little stars. They are, apparently, now predicting snow showers and a low of 29 on Tuesday. And WIND on Monday.

Now what?

(edit)
Well now, I watch the weather and see that they changed their minds after all. Partly cloudy with a 20% chance of precipitation. I do, however, have plans to build a snowman in the park and go sledding with one of my roommates when it does snow: making childhood memories I don't have. Whoopee!

Blommer Chocolates

On certain days, at certain times, when the wind is blowing just right, it smells like chocolate in downtown Chicago. It's not a sickeningly sweet chocolate smell, it's just a faint hint that hangs on the wind and flies through the city streets. There are so many disgusting things that cities can smell like, and sometimes Chicago can too, but on chocolate days, even when it's cold, it makes it all the more worthwhile to live here.

disconnected stories with the same theme

I walked to the train this morning, ears freezing off my head, cheeks stinging, wondering how I'm going to survive the winter. I'm never going to wear my hair up. I'm going to invent a nose warmer with my sister and start a company. I'm going to get a black ski mask and never show anyone my face. I'm going to wear ear muffs. I can't wait 'til it's cold enough to wear my winter coat: then I will be warm.

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I stood on the packed train this morning, wedged between a tall guy in a smelly red fleece jacket, a guy in a hat reading the New York Times, and the door. It was so packed that I didn't have to worry about falling: gripping as tight as I could onto the metal pole, bending my knees, or shifting my weight. I was sweating inside my new wool sweater (from a thrift store, $5), a scarf, my new brown boots, and my California-winter jacket. I turned my face up to the train map above me and wished I was almost at my stop.

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A woman in the elevator mentioned to her companion that it's supposed to snow next week. A flutter in my chest and a million things running through my head: what will I wear? what shoes will I wear? How cold will it be? When will it happen? Where will I be? Isn't it too early for snow? Is this the beginning of the winter? My cheeks red, my eyes twinkling, myself getting suddenly three feet shorter, a sled appearing in my hand I gazed out the window, looking for a cloud. I burst into the office, smiling, and said quickly to my co-worker, a Chicago suburbs native, "Someone in the elevator said it's supposed to snow next week." "No way," she said. "Don't ruin my morning." Well, anyway, weather.com says it's not supposed to snow next week. In fact, the lows don't get below freezing and the highs don't get below 45. I'm going to buy wool socks and long underwear and sweater tights and long-sleeved shirts and more wool sweaters that aren't itchy and I'll be fine. And snow? This is me in snow:


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I always write about the cold. I have other things to say, but sitting here at my desk, still in my wool sweater, sipping my tea, the cold is what I think about. Because it might not be warm outside, but it's not warm inside either. My fingers are chilly on the keyboard, my nose is frigid. About that nose warmer.