Midwest Odds: Chicago-ish Edition

5/17/26:
On Sunday I hung out with my sister. My mom and brother went to church around 10am, but I like going to church with Fabie so I waited for her to get ready. It was almost 11 by the time she was done so we went to the only mass time would could make on time, at a church in Indiana. During mass, I spend too much time thinking instead of paying attention. But I did pray, and hopefully, God will grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to get freaking laid this summer.

After mass, we stopped by a gas station because when you cross the border from Illinois, gas prices drop at least 50 cents, and who has time to pay $5 a gallon? At the gas station store I got a Bloom energy drink which my sister chastised me for. Whatever man! There was a donut shop next door which had a hole-in-the-wall, hidden gem look to it, so we went inside and got an apple glazed donut to share. It was $3 and to be completely honest, not worth the price. Then we went to an estate sale. The house was pretty gross so I couldn’t bring myself to buy anything, I could barely even look. The carpet was all brown and the oven looked straight out of a 90’s sitcom, just way dirtier. Lot’s of junk. They were selling a 6-Pack of doctor peppers that were 30+ years old. What happens if you drink that? You’d probably turn super saiyan. My sister bought some old salespapers, from the 60’s and 70’s. I looked up some of the addresses to see if the businesses were still around, but none of them were.

5/20/26:
Working from home today. Went on a lunch break stroll through the neighborhood with sis and the in law. The suburbs get a lot of hate for their uniformity, but I like it, it’s comforting. Ideally, since everyone has almost exactly the same house, the suburbs would have complete peace, because no one could be considered above another. Of course, that’s not true - even here, all the neighbors are engaged in a silent competition, embellishing their houses with fancy lights and doors and big body SUVs.

Saw a garbage truck - how do those things work? Who even thought of that? A mechanical arm to pick up a perfectly shaped box, and dump the garbage into another box, to be taken to a pit of dirt (a giant box) to sit and rot for years after we leave this Earth. Plastics on plastics, never melting, never disintegrating, just piled up high.

Working because I need to PR done before Friday. Current listens:

Schizo Flare - SEAPOOL

It’s a pun: Sukizo furea is “Schizo Flare”. Suki is “I like you.” Dear reader, here is where I confess my feelings to you. It’s true, I -

Telekinesis - tricot

Frog in Boiling Water - DIIV

Kill the Candle - MXLONELY

I like the part that goes fucking SCHEMER. Yeah!!!

Cross that Line - Tinashe

Dear reader: I wish to proposition you. Would you cross that line with me?

After work I went to Home Depot with Grandma and sis. We were looking for ghost peppers, but they didn’t have any. In the car, Grandma lamented that the squirrels ate the tomatos she was growing. “Next time I see them, I will kill them!”, she said with startling fervor. My Mom has always told me that Grandma was a tough woman in her younger years, but I’m still surprised when that side reveals itself. Besides gardening, Grandma has been sewing a dress by hand. She has a phone, but she has never doom-scrolled, the concept doesn’t exist in her mind. Although she has spent 3 hours sitting a foot away from the T.V. watching church, so I guess it all evens out.

Fabie and I went out for a Facebook Marketplace pickup. We came home with a box of retro games, CD games like the Sims and Wheel of Fortune. We passed by this house styled like a log cabin. It was for sale, and I thought about moving in, having a tea party, using the fireplace, living a cabin life. Sometimes, during work, I’ll imagine myself in a faraway cabin, writing, writing, reading, writing some more. If only…

Mom says I need to eat eat eat, so I capitulated and had many slices of cinnamon bread. I felt like a child again - often in my youth, Mom would bring home a bag of cinnamon bread, and I’d make a sandwich, it was cinnamon bread with Hawaiian Punch Applesauce inbetween, a creation I was very proud of. There was a time when I was older that I tried to remake the recipe, but it wasn’t the same, by then Hawaiian Punch Applesauce had been discontinued, or maybe, it had never existed at all.

5/21/26:

I took the Metra downtown to hang out with Eric and Aryan at the Chicago Athletic Association. It sounds like a YMCA-type place but it’s a hotel, and they have a nice dining area with lots of tables that’s great for working. If you enter and go straight up the marble stairs, you’ll see the vestiges of it’s previous identity - a drained pool.

Eric is doing well. Dear reader, have you met Eric? If not, I’ll tell you some things you must know:

(1) He is my twin from another mother. 
(2) He has a friendly smile. 
(3) As a graduate of the Illinois Mathemetics and Science Academy, he is automatically a dork. (kidding! Ha. not really) 
(4) He wants to go to Japan.  

He’s been organzing STEM curriculums and programs for the youth, and today, he expressed grave concern about the growing literacy crisis. Yes, dear reader, it’s true: your kids can’t read.

Aryan arrived at the Chicago Athletic Association later. I forgot to tell her Eric would be there as well (ha) but it wasn’t awkward! I had to take a call so I stepped away from the table for a bit. When I came back, Eric and Aryan were quietly complaining about a woman at another table. Then, a waitress went up to her and said “You’re not allowed to tell people where to sit.” I asked Aryan to transcribe the situation in my notebook, this is what she wrote:

INCIDENT AT THE DRAWING ROOM
Ok, so Eric and I were sitting chatting and I make eye contact with this BITCH who I at first thought was nice, so I smiled at her, but then she comes up to Eric and I and says “Hey, you guys are leaving right? Cause I want to sit here.” We were so confused cause there is literally so much space to sit so we looked at each other and started laughing lol cause we were like this is weird, then she was just standing there like “Yeah, I can see that you are done with your food so you guys should leave so that I can sit here.” I was like b*tch wtf in my head and mind you she was still standing there like waiting for us to go, and then eric was like “Hell nah, our friend is here too” cause you were in a meeting and she was like “Where is your friend? Show me your friend.” And now we both were like tf. Of course this lady is white-ish? IDK, but like the space has so many tables so like why was she so pressed over our table it made absolutely no sense LMAO.

We agreed that the woman was evil, racist, annoying, and ugly, and I’m glad the Chicago Athletic Association employees took our side. Boo her! 🍅🍅🍅

Eric had to depart, and I went with Aryan to get lunch at Minghin Downtown. I got some noodles, don’t remember what they were but they were good, I loved the bean sprouts. Hanging out with Aryan is one of my favorite things, I think she is top 10 funniest people in the world. She says to send her music if my quasi-band every makes any originals. I will try.

5/24/26:
I was putting on my shoes when my sister came to me in a panic. “Erika. There’s a bunch of ants by the garage door.” She paced back and forth, but I just shrugged. Ants outside? Isn’t that where they live? When I went out to put my bag in the car, I saw them. At first I thought it was a pile of black dirt, but it was a moving mass of living beings, ants shifting back and forth and atop one another. In the car, Mom said it was because they’d gotten the door replaced and it disturbed their home. I couldn’t get a picture of it because I didn’t want to see the ant mass in my camera role. It was a Sunday afternoon, maybe they were wrapping up their church services. Had their home truly been disturbed? Was the ant mass just a cacophony of distressed ants, wondering where they were, and who was surrounding them, had the movement of the garage door displaced them into a state of mass confusion? Their perils concerned me, and then, slipped through me, as I headed to the airport to return to the desert.