The Everywhereist

Street crossing in Downtown Milwaukee.

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The main drawback of communicating mostly through sarcasm (if, indeed, there is any) is this: on the rare occasion when you are sincere, people don’t believe you. They think you are being a snide jerk, and the more you try to convince them otherwise, the worse it gets.

This happened time and again whenever someone asked me what I thought of Wisconsin (and of Milwaukee and Green Bay and the stretch of highway in between).

I answered them honestly. I loved it.

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Before we dined there, we had trouble discerning what Blue’s Egg was. The menu was eclectic and high-brow, but the setting (in a small strip mall) suggested a casual diner.

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In truth, it was both – that blissful mix of homey and familiar, strange and exotic. Plus, there were cookies topped with bacon.

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My husband is a non-believer.

I don’t mean to say he isn’t religious. At least, I don’t mean to just say that he isn’t religious. There are lots of things that Rand doesn’t believe in or ascribe to. Here is a short list:

• Tarot cards
• Palm readers
• Any type of healing that involves crystals
• Putting sugar in your tea/coffee/booze
• Using coupons
• Pre-rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher
• PUTTING DIRTY CLOTHES IN THE GODDAMN HAMPER INSTEAD OF LEAVING THEM IN A PILE OF THE GROUND (Ahem.)
• The afterlife
• Taking vitamins
• Holding your breath while driving through tunnels
• The existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or any other awesome and totally real creature
• Listening to the nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach
• Obeying the GPS

He’s perfectly respectful of people who do believe in those things. I’ve never heard him ever disparage the views of those who think differently than he (as long as those views aren’t intolerant in and of themselves).

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There are moments of my life that are so perfect, so ridiculously wonderful, that eloquence fails me.

You’d think that those would be the times when words would come most easily. But when you are surrounded by poetry, it is incredibly hard to create more of it. You simply look around, stupefied, and think, “Heh. This … awesome. Life … good. I … happy.”

That’s what happened one night when we were walking along the river in the Milwaukee.

Yes, Milwaukee. (I will kindly ask that you not look so surprised.)

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It’s funny how quickly the bizarre becomes normal.

How things that are strange and weird become familiar and every day. So that after a while, we forget that they’re even all that strange, until someone else points it out to us.

When we first moved back to Seattle from Florida, nearly 20 years ago (good heavens, the years. They are slippery little suckers, are they not?) my mother and I were faced with an odd problem. Our home felt far too empty. My brother had gone off to college, so it was just the two of us, living in far more square footage than we’d ever known.

We dealt with the problem in the usual way: we bought a mannequin.

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Once again, I wax poetic about baked goods.

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Do you ever have moments of extreme clarity?

I’m not referring to those times when the skies above you are cloud free, or when your skin is looking absent of blemishes, almost to the point of vulnerability. No. I live in Seattle, and I eat lots of cake. My clarity does not manifest itself in those terms. (more…)