My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [20]
I nod. “Now that I’d understand. When I got laid off, I remember I’d sit in my desk chair and spin and spin when I was trying to think.”
“Exactly. And I give you props for not leaving the moment the first n-i-p-p-l-e made its Goodman Theatre debut,” she adds.
“You know what’s funny? Even though I had no frigging clue what any of the performance meant, I like having had the privilege of getting a glimpse into an artist’s mind. I mean, what I saw was disturbing and dark—”
“And watermelon-y.”
“And watermelon-y,” I agree, “but the experience wasn’t without value, you know? Like, my world is a tiny bit bigger for having seen that.”
Stacey seems pleased. “That’s what I always used to try to get my students to see. The value in a performance like that isn’t understanding every nuance the artist implies. It’s the interpretation and feelings you get from it.”
“Well, mostly I ended up thinking I wasn’t in on the joke. But there’s a part of me that feels like I learned something from the performance, even if it’s how to fight my way out of a giant dry-cleaning bag.”
Seriously, something about this performance yanked off the big white dustcover that’s been protecting the critical thinking part of my brain. There were no producers here to explain every little nuance of the action via a single-camera confessional, and it was up to me to interpret what I saw. I had to engage.
Intellectually, I sort of feel like I did the first time I ran on the treadmill. Most of my body was screaming no . . . but a tiny part of me shouted yes.
from the desk of the logan square - bucktown neighborhood association41
Dear Neighbor,
Remember this weekend when you idled right outside my bedroom window? And you played shitty house music as loud as your fifteen-year-old Buick’s radio would allow? With your bass turned up so high my fillings rattled? For, like, twenty minutes? At 3:00 a.m.? And when I went outside to glower at you, all you did was move two spaces up? Remember that?
No?
Too bad.
Because that’d go a long way in explaining why I was organizing my purse right beneath your open bedroom window late last night, playing Natasha Bedingfield as loud as my Harman Kardon speakers would allow.
By the way, I don’t have a day job.
But from the looks of your pajamas, you do.
Check and mate, bitch.
Best,
Jen Cognito, Association President
P.S. Next time, I’m breaking out my Wham CD. Consider this a warning.
CHAPTER FOUR
Do You Have Love for New York?
I’ve reached a new height in procrastination.
Thirty-four thousand feet, to be exact.
With a book deadline looming, I decide the most effective use of my time is to join my friends in New York for a girls’ weekend instead of sitting down at my computer and finally putting a dent in my book.
My friends planned this trip last year but I knew I’d be on deadline, so I begged off months ago. All that changed last week when I got an e-mail from an associate producer working for the Travel Channel. She was in charge of finding residents to appear on a Chicago edition of Samantha Brown’s Great Weekends show and would I be interested?
Would I be interested?
In seeing my enormous head on national cable television?
On what’s technically a reality show?
Which in turn might be seen by the producers of Survivor, who will immediately appreciate how snarky I am and fall all over themselves to cast me because even though I trend a little acerbic,42 I’m way more likable than that mean girl Courtney from the China season. Sure, she came up with the greatest zinger in reality show history, describing the bemulleted lunch lady as someone who “sucked at life,” but still . . . I’m pretty sure I’d be better. Plus, I have some strongs left inside me from all the working out