Rhinestone

So it’s come to this: I’m preparing to interview for a temp job; when I used to do temp work, not that long ago, I met with someone from a temp agency, and was placed at assignments sight unseen.  Now, more than three years after getting laid off and looking for work, I’m submitting to the possibility of being rejected for temporary work. My contact at the agency sends me a humiliating email telling me what to do: Please wear a suit, it says, as if I’m new to this, as if I’m a high school senior going on her first interview, as if I’ve never seen the inside of an office before. 

The definition of insanity, in a quote attributed to Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I’ve been doing the same thing since June of 2009; I look at job postings, send a cover letter and resume to ones that look promising, go on interviews, sometimes get called back for a second interview, sometimes make it to the final two candidates, and never get offered the job.

I sleep poorly the night before; I wake up tired, bleary, and depressed.  I go through the morning ablutions of any regular working woman, and make my way to the brown line at 7:30am. As the train makes its way toward the loop, it gets crowded. It’s been so long since I’ve had a regular commute that it’s strange to see all the working stiffs on the train engaged in behavior that has become alien to me: people from around the city have gotten up early, showered, fixed their hair, put on a suit – maybe a tie, and gotten on the train where they sit or stand in a mute, deadened state, interacting only with their iPhones, iPads, and the odd newspaper. They get off downtown, walk into air-conditioned buildings and spend the day pretending that they don’t know any curse words.  I get off at Adams and Wabash and join the streams of people walking down the stairs moving urgently towards their destination. It looks like a carefully choreographed piece of performance art, or a salmon spawn. 

I find the building, and make my way to the security desk, where I get a temporary ID and pass through the corral that separates the public from a bank of elevators, and make my way to the 14^th floor.  Halfway through the second interview (there will be three in total) I’ve heard enough to I know I won’t get this job. As it turns out, I’ve been interviewing for a personal assistant position, but the description was for a development assistant position, and in retrospect it’s clear that I’ve answered some key questions incorrectly. I make my descent to the first floor and call the agency, as per my emailed instructions.  “Do you think you’d accept if they offered you the job?” they ask.  “Yes, I would,” I say, even though I know this won’t happen.

I go to Einstein’s Bagels to get coffee and something to eat, and as I walk in the door the theme to “Sanford and Son” plays on the audio system, like some kind of cosmic commentary on my life. I order a bagel and a small coffee, and the woman at the register recommends that I get the bagel and medium coffee combo because it’s cheaper.  It saves me about a dollar and a half, and it makes me feel protected somehow that this woman I’ve never met is looking after my financial well-being.  I sit at a table and pull out my Hallmark thank you notes from my purse, the cheapest kind available, $4 for a pack of 10, and my book of stamps.  I’ve been on roughly 30 in-person interviews and 10 phone interviews since I was laid off in 2009, and I like to think that my contribution to the greeting card industry and the US Postal Service has made a dent in the economic viability of both entities. I used to pore over every word in a thank you note and keep a copy of the text for future reference; now it comes out like so many prepackaged Hallmark messages: “Dear [name], thank you for taking the time to meet with me today regarding the open [job] position.  I enjoyed our conversation, and hope to have the opportunity to discuss this opportunity further. Sincerely…”

I’m downtown so rarely these days, and it’s usually for some humiliating interview, so I make sure to build in other, more practical reasons to be there so it doesn’t feel like a total waste of train fare and effort when I ultimately get rejected, and I’d noticed a couple days earlier that one of the rhinestones in my eyeglasses had fallen out.  They’re LaFont frames; an extravagant purchase, they are by far the most expensive thing that I wear, excluding my engagement ring.  It took me a year to convince myself to buy them. They sit perfectly on the bridge of my nose, making my face appear neither too large nor too small, they are feather light, and I’ve owned them for about four years. My last trip downtown was for a farewell lunch for a former coworker who’s relocating to San Francisco, and I sat silent as my former colleagues caught up on their work lives. Dan talked about his upcoming job change, and spoke in disparaging terms about his current supervisor, who didn’t make a counteroffer when he told her that he’d been offered a job elsewhere, securing his opinion of her and of his current workplace.  It was like listening to aliens talk about alien things dressed in alien clothes; I had nothing to add to the conversation. My built-in practical reason for being downtown that day was to visit the optician who’d filled the prescription for me.  He couldn’t help with my missing rhinestone, but gave me the business card of someone who works in the Jewelers Building at 5 South Wabash, and recommended that I try there. 

Thank you notes written, coffee and bagel consumed, I got up and made my way to South Wabash.  I rode the ancient, creaking elevator in the Jewelers Building to the eleventh floor and walked into the wrong studio – an expensive looking, brightly lit establishment that specialized in watches.  They weren’t sure they could help me, and I’d have to leave the eyeglasses with them if I wanted their expertise.  I thanked them and left with my eyeglasses in hand.  As I approached the elevator again I saw the place listed on the business card – Danny & Debbie Jewelers, it was tucked behind the elevator bank in a moldering two room studio with a view of an alley.  In the back room, a man in his late 50s or early 60s who must have been Danny worked on a piece of jewelry, in the front room dusty display cases that were mostly empty housed a few pairs of silver earrings, and a plate with the Aztec sun calendar hung on one wall.  I explained to a dark-haired woman who must have been Debbie what I needed, and she went to a shelf stacked with boxes of rhinestones.  She pulled one down and Danny joined her in poring over them.  They spoke to each other in Spanish, and I tried to understand them. Debbie referred to Danny as “Papa,” and I heard him use the word “chiquita,” which I’ve only heard in reference to bananas.  I made a mental note to look it up.  “Esta, papa,” she said, holding a tiny purple rhinestone in a pair of tweezers. Danny affixed the rhinestone into my eyeglass frames, told me not to wear them for a few hours, and retreated into the back room.  I packed the eyeglasses into my bag, and pulled my wallet out, but Debbie made no move to write up an invoice or ask for payment.  “What do I owe you?” I asked.  “Oh, like, a dollar,” she said.  

On the train ride home I reflected on the events of the morning: for less than half of what it cost for me to ride the train downtown for my useless interview, two people worked earnestly to replace a tiny rhinestone that only I knew was missing. A few days later I would get a phone call from the temp agency, which I would let go to voicemail.  I played it back, and missed the first few seconds because I was fumbling for the speakerphone button.  “…great news” the voice on the message said, but the intonation was flat.  I rewound to the beginning and heard the phrase in its entirety: “Unfortunately I’m not calling with great news…”  

I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to find a job for three years, but it only took a minute for Danny and Debbie to find a rhinestone for me.  The color isn’t an exact match, but only I know which rhinestone it is.  I like the fact that it doesn’t match perfectly; it reminds me of the small dignities that still exist in the world.

Insomnia, part III - this is getting to be a habit

There was one semester of college where I couldn't sleep.  I had recently moved to Chicago, I lived in a studio apartment with the best cat ever and about eight hundred roaches, and I really didn't know anybody.  I had transferred schools halfway through college and everybody seemed to already know each other.  I went to Columbia College when it was still a commuter school, there were no dorms or campus housing of any kind, so it was hard to break into the social scene.  I couldn't sleep at night, and instead I stayed up late watching reruns of St. Elsewhere on my giant, 1984 color TV that had no remote, so if I wanted to change the channel I had to get up from a reclining position on my futon and change it my damn self.  They aired St. Elsewhere at 2 or 3 in the morning, and ran 2 or 3 episodes in a row, in sequence, so I'd follow along and feel nostalgic for Boston, where the series is set, and isn't that far from the school I had transferred from.  Sometimes even that didn't work, so after the last episode of St. Elsewhere had wrapped up I would go for walks along Broadway, Clark Street, Halsted.  My husband tells me that his first clear memory of me is when he and his roommate were walking home from a late night out and ran into me at 4am.  I was friends with his roommate, who asked me what I was doing out.  "I can't sleep," I explained.  I remember that my husband - well, the man who would many years later become my husband, leaned in and hugged me when I said that.  I didn't expect it, and was uncomfortable.

At some point in the early morning it would seem ridiculous to try to go to sleep, so I'd plan on staying up all day, going downtown for class, and sleeping when I got home.  Invariably, I would fall asleep at around 6am, sleep right through class, and wake up at some point in the afternoon.  It was a cycle I couldn't snap out of, and I got terrible grades as a result.  I even failed a class for not handing in my final report.

In retrospect, I know what was keeping me up at night - I was trying to run away from myself, but it wasn't working.   At around that time I read Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and there's a line in it that I'll paraphrase, or maybe the Internet will find it for me (bless you Internet - first web site that popped up in a Google search had it!):

[W]herever I sat - on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok - I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.  ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 15

I'd left Boston thinking that I would be happier somewhere else, but the truth was I was simply unhappy, Chicago wasn't going to change that.  I'd been running from my own head, reinventing my life in an attempt to change who I was.  

The week my husband and I got back from Montreal, I couldn't sleep 3 nights out of the first 4 that we were back.  I know why I'm not sleeping, I'm just not sure what to do about it.  

As it turns out, it shows that I'm not really invested in my job.  My boss had a talk with me my first day back - a kind of pre-annual review (dear God, have I really been there for a year?!) and told me that concerns had been raised about my performance.  I couldn't lie to her - it has been hard for me.  I never thought I'd be working there, would never have even applied for the job if it weren't for my circumstances, and throughout my unemployed year I was able to distract myself from my job loss by immersing myself in other things - travel, volunteering, writing.  It wasn't until I accepted a job that was not just a step backwards but a whole staircase of steps backwards that I felt the enormity of what I had lost.  I'd done the best I could with the situation at hand - got to know my colleagues, lost 20 pounds, grew triceps where no triceps were before; but the truth is, I never meant to be there, certainly not this long.

I actually really appreciated my boss calling me out on my performance, for a long time it felt like I could do a great job or a crappy job and nobody would know the difference.  It feels like we've crossed a divide, and become more honest with each other; it feels better to go to work... sort of.  Sort of.  

What kept me up at night in 1992 and 1993 was my brain working in overdrive, trying to figure out my life, and I guess it's not that different from what's keeping me up now.  For some reason I'm unable to follow through on my own instincts - search out new opportunities, pursue them, find more meaningful work.  I'm just so tired of looking, and so tired of interviewing, and so tired of rejection, but the alternative is insomnia, and it's really not doing much for me. 

The Long Way Home, Part IV - Chicago

Me, in a paddle boat, on the way to Ngor Island.

On the blue line heading home from O’Hare Airport, I stare out the window as the train rattles along a raised track, dividing eight lanes of highway traffic.  Miraculously, the suitcase and djembe that I checked at the Iberia Airlines counter at Léopold Sédar Senghor airport three days ago appeared within minutes at baggage claim, intact, with orange British Airways tags labeling them "rush".  K tells me via email that the djembe she’d brought with her broke en route to Poland.  We meet at a café later where I give her the unbroken drum, and she presents me with a set of Polish nesting dolls as a thank you gift for transporting it.

Security at the Madrid airport was tighter than anything I’ve experienced. There had been the usual x-raying of bags and bodies, followed by standing in lines determined by gender, getting patted down, answering a series of questions, and opening carry-on luggage for inspection.  The plane filled achingly slowly - a number of passengers had been taken aside for more thorough screens, then wandered through the door of the aircraft bearing facial expressions that told of things that could not be un-seen.

It turns out that I missed a bad cold snap and a flu virus that had made the rounds in Chicago, and I’m grateful.  Things that have changed since I left: it’s now 2010; Conan O’Brien’s days at NBC are numbered (this really hits home, his new show started when I got laid off, and it gave me something to look forward to on days when there wasn’t much else going on);  I’ve received two more rejections from the same potential employer I’ve been interviewing with since September, bringing the total number of times they’ve rejected me to 4 (and in the coming months they will reject me twice more);  and my husband bought us new phones and a coffeemaker that can be programmed to turn on by itself in the morning.

My first week home I sleep like it’s the key to unlocking some ancient mystery.  I commune with my pets.  I’m even less capable of handling trips to the grocery store than usual – my sensory perceptions are overwhelmed by the sight and smell of food stacked eight feet high in cavernous aisles, sealed and wrapped in refrigerated display cases, most of it processed and packaged to the point where it no longer resembles its original ingredients, all of it accompanied by incongruous music piped in through overhead sound systems.  The cold Chicago weather, while comforting in its familiarity, feels willful and unnecessary.  

When people ask me about Senegal I answer in generalities: "it was amazing," or "it was challenging," unsure of where to begin or what to say.  The tiniest events have become large in my memory – someone handing me a choice morsel of food from the other side of a plate because it’s considered rude to reach across a communal dish, and rude to keep the best pieces for yourself; Ibou punctuating his sentences with “Che Yallaaaah,” and, after being taught how to say it in English, “Oh mai god”; the empty plastic water bottles that accumulate by the front door during our stay in the rented house; joking with my Polish roommates that they should invent a new dance based on their gastrointestinal distress called “The Toubab Two-Step,” comprised of alternately sitting on a toilet and kneeling in front of it; and Abdou’s perennial refrain to my questions – “this is Africa.”

My husband marvels at the objects and photos I’ve brought back with me, the stories I tell him, and the sounds I was able to record using somewhat dated technology (I still have to upload the files to our computer).   I take the last of my malaria pills – the prescription began a week before my departure, and I have a few left.

In the months since then, I’ve taken special notice of cab drivers; Idy had told us that a lot of Senegalese immigrants in Chicago drive taxis for a living.  I always overtip them.

September 27th - On the way back from Grand Rapids

The roads were clear until we got to the Dan Ryan, where traffic was heavy.  A man in the car next to us rolled down his window, pulled a piece of bright green gum from his mouth, and dropped it out the open window.  It stuck to the door of his SUV like a gigantic booger.  I hope that piece of chewed up gum stayed on that car the whole way home.

September 21st - Gorée Island, Part II, Maison Des Esclaves

We enter the Masion Des Esclaves, a rust colored building with a large double staircase in the central room leading to a second floor.  The vendors who've followed us around the island don't follow us inside, and I am grateful for the solitude.  In my line of vision is a placard with the word Hommes above a doorway.  It isn't until I've walked around the periphery of the main floor and seen the placards above the other rooms: Femmes, Jeunes Filles, and Enfants, that I realize these are not restrooms, but holding cells that people were taken to, separated by age and sex.  This information drips down over me slow and cold, like someone cracked an enormous raw egg on my head. 

Our guide takes us to each room, describing the living conditions in each space.  Each room has it's own horrific story: "This is where the men were kept," our guide says as we stand crowded together in the small dark space I'd initially mistook for a bathroom, "they were lined up against the walls so tightly that at night they could only sleep by leaning against each other.  They were held here for a maximum of three months, after that they were weighed - if they weighed less than 60 kilos, they were thrown into the ocean where they were eaten by sharks; if anyone got sick, or no one bought them, they were thrown into the ocean and eaten by sharks.  Approximately 20 million people passed through this island on their way to slavery, and of those, 6 million died."  The number six million feels sickeningly familiar.

"This is where the young girls were kept,"  our guide says as we enter a room marked Jeunes Filles.  "They were picked based on the size of their breasts," he says, cupping his chest with his hands, "if they were big enough, they were sent to this room; if not, they were sent to the children's room.  The girls in this room were raped, became pregnant, and their mixed blood children were sent to live in a house on this island, becoming an elite class of métis who had status higher than their parents.  The slave girls never saw their children after giving birth."

"This is where the children were kept," our guide tells us in the room marked Enfants.  "Families were brought here," he says, pointing to Idy, his wife Fina, and three year-old daughter Mamie, "and separated.  The men were imprisoned in one room," he says, pointing to Idy, "the women in another," he says, gesturing to Fina,"and the children," he says, placing his hand on Mamie's head, "were kept in this room."  If there was ever a moment I am thankful that Mamie doesn't understand French, it's now.  "Families were broken up and sold to different buyers; in one family the father might be sold and shipped Brazil, the mother to a plantation in the American Carolinas, and the child to Cuba, never to see or hear from each other again."

Idy halts in his translation, his voice breaking.  "Oh God," he says quietly, then collects himself and continues.  I'd been anxious to see this place, and had been frustrated that Idy kept putting it off; watching him I wonder how many times he's had to do this, what it must be like for him to have to come here year after year and explain to a new group of people exactly how this building functioned, what it must be like to live so close to this place.  I suppose eventually you'd get used to it - as you might if you lived near a holocaust memorial site.  In some ways, we all live with the ghosts, genocides, and wrongs of the past; in my hometown of Chicago, the streets are mapped out on a grid system - the only streets that run at an angle are ones that were used as Indian trails.  The trails have long since been paved over, and the Indians have long since disappeared.  Chicago is even named for a Potawotami word meaning wild onion or wild garlic, but the Potawotami themselves were forcibly removed from Chicago in 1833.  There are no markers memorializing the Potawotami; coming face-to-face with the Maison Des Esclaves - an actual physical vestige of something that is at once so undeniably central to the story of America, and so completely despicable, is overwhelming.

Finally, our guide shows us La Porte Du Voyage Sans Retour, the gate of the "trip from which no one returned," where slave ships were docked and loaded with human cargo.  "Africans were complicit in the slave trade," our guide says, "they were hired by Europeans to capture other Africans, and were paid in rum."  I stare out at the ocean, my tiny struggles and discomforts dissolved into insignificance.  I imagine seeing a ship on the horizon, I think about all the people who've become part of the ocean I'm looking at, that it's the same ocean that runs along the eastern seaboard of the United States.  I walk into an empty room marked Chambre de Pesage, "weighing room," and quietly lose my composure, snuffling into my hands and hoping no one interrupts me.

I can't bring myself to take any photos of the Maison Des Esclaves, it feels disrespectful.  I take three pictures of the entire island: one of a gnarled tree stump; one of some rooftops; and one of a mother and child tending to their goats and cows.  The scene is so bucolic, you'd never know it was on the same island as the Maison Des Esclaves.

Portugal Part VIII - Epilogue

I. Porto

By the time Frances and I had woken up the next morning and gotten ourselves ready to explore Porto, half the team had already begun their journeys home. Cher was in the lobby with her copious luggage when we descended the staircase, and moments later a cab arrived to whisk her off to the airport. John had left a few hours earlier, as had Bebe and Catherine. Nicholas was scheduled to take a train heading north back to his parents' house in France. I wasn't leaving until the next day, as was Frances, and Lili had scheduled three extra days in a bed & breakfast on the Rua de S. Nicolau near the river. The participation fee I'd paid only covered one night's stay in the Porto hotel, but Frances let me share her room an additional night without charging me.

We handed our heavy room key to the grumpy desk clerk and walked out into the drizzling city to find breakfast. The rain had slowed, but it had been a near-constant for two days now. We settled on a cafe that had a pastry display in the window, and enjoyed the novelty of what felt like big-city bustle. On the street, people walked past the cafe at a brisk clip, and inside customers engaged each other in lively conversation. I looked out the window I saw the familiar figure of Shirley blending in with the locals, and waved to her. She smiled, waved back, and approached us.

"I'm glad I ran into you," she said, "I have something for you, and I was going to leave it at the front desk - my flight leaves in a couple hours and I'm heading out soon." Shirley had spent the past couple hours shopping for a gift for Frances; back in Braga, before watching the soccer game, we'd decided to pitch in €5 each and buy a gift for Frances as a gesture of our appreciation for leading the team. Frances had been just as taken with tile as I was, and we'd planned on buying her some as our group gift to her. Unfortunately, by the time we got to Porto there hadn't been time for shopping, and since today was Sunday hardly anything was open. Shirley had settled on a hand painted ceramic platter instead. I decided then that once I got home I would send Frances one of my tiles - I'd accidentally bought two of the same kind, and while the platter was nice, it wasn't the same as a piece of antique Portuguese tile.

We met up with Lili for lunch at the Majestic Cafe, a belle epoque building that featured leather seats, mirrored walls, and served expensive tea in fine china. We split up for the afternoon, each of us exploring our own interests. I spent some time at an Internet cafe that had reasonable rates and explored the city on foot, marveling at the buildings, and naturally, the tiles that covered them. We connected again at dinner, meeting at a three table restaurant called A Grade (pronounced ah grahday) that was owned by the B&B where Lili was staying. We dined on the most exquisite cod, squid, and Portuguese wine I've ever tasted. It was easily the best food and most fun meal of the entire trip.

Unsolicited, the owner of the restaurant came out from behind his station at the bar, approached our table with an ornate looking bottle and three shot glasses, and poured us all a serving. We toasted each other and downed the shots. It was surprisingly pleasant, whatever it was, and a moment later the owner returned and served us a second round. We hesitated, and finally Frances said "Oh alright." I lifted my glass up and said "If Frances is having one, I'm having one." A small boy at the next table began to parrot me: "If Frances is having one, I'm having one," he said, and then repeated the phrase. I took out my notepad to write down the name on the bottle label when a man at the next table - the father of the little boy who was parroting me, turned in his seat and began speaking to us in perfect English. He explained that the owner of the restaurant used old bottles for his own homemade hooch, and I'd only be writing down the name of what was originally in the bottle. By the time we left the restaurant we'd regained our sense of wonder that had been lost the day before. I was grateful for the chance to recuperate after the miserable day we'd just survived, and couldn't have found two better people to spend an extra day in Porto with than Frances and Lili.

II. The Journey Home

When Frances and I arrived at the airport in the wee hours of the morning, it appeared to be closed. "Cerrado", the taxi driver had said to us after unloading our luggage from the trunk, and "cinco horas". It seemed he was speaking Spanish. The lights were off inside the airport, and a few people were waiting outside on benches. We sat down, and peered through the glass walls into the darkened airport. After a few minutes I saw movement, there were a couple guards walking around, and I thought I saw the figures of people sleeping on the floor here and there. We tried the sliding doors and they opened, inside the only sound was the squeaky wheel of a cart piled with luggage that a lone traveler was pushing across the floor in slow motion, like a zombie in a horror movie. A flashing green pharmacy sign was the only source of light. As our eyes adjusted to the dark I began to make out the figures of more people sitting on benches, or asleep on the floor. The lights came on at about 5am. My flight was first, Frances and I said our goodbyes and I went through the security checkpoint.

I had a four hour layover in Frankfurt, where I experienced severe sticker shock. I'd become so used to Portuguese prices that €3 for an individual serving of yogurt and €16 an hour to use an Internet kiosk seemed beyond outrageous. I sent M the most expensive email of my life, struggling to use the German keyboard that seemed to be nothing but W and Z keys. A timer counted down the minutes of Internet access that I'd paid €2.50 for, so I didn't bother trying to spell anything correctly. The resulting communication was as follows:

Im in the Frankfiurt airport using a kiosk that costs 16 euros an hour, and II onli paid for 15 mins. the kezuboard is messed up so I cant spell. Mzu phone card ran out of minutes while we were talking in Portugal. Whz does the German kezboard have a Z where a Y should be? Annozing.

See zou soon, love zou, miss zou,

J

I had coffee at Starbucks because it was the cheapest thing I could find, and ate granola bars that I'd brought with me from Chicago and were still in my luggage. Looking around I couldn't help noticing that I was the worst dressed person in the airport. Everyone around me was neatly dressed and coiffed, I had a red bandanna on my head and wore the same underwear I had on the day before. I smelled a little ripe too. Whoever sits next to me is going to wish they paid for an upgrade, I thought as I lifted my €3.80 latte to my lips.

Before I could present my information at the check-in counter a woman with excessive mascara and white eyeliner rimming the inside of her lids asked me a barrage of questions: where had I traveled - Marseilles, Barcelona and Porto; how did I get from Marseilles to Barcelona - by train; did I have any checked luggage - no; who had I visited - my father, a high school friend, and a Habitat for Humanity project; why did I say I'd flown from Barcelona to Porto, but the records indicated that I'd flown to Lisbon - because I missed the flight to Porto; and did I have access to laundry facilities? When I answered affirmatively to the laundry question the woman relaxed a degree and said "That explains it, no woman would travel with such little luggage."

From there I searched the mammoth airport for my gate, stopping to ask directions from a stout, mustachioed man dressed in a security uniform and carrying an assault weapon. When he didn't understand my question he looked me in the eye and said simply: "a-gaaaain" in a flat tone that reminded me of Lurch from The Addams Family. Behind him a photocopied flier with names and mug shots of wanted terrorists was fixed to a pole.

At the gate all passengers went through security twice, once on entering the gate area and again before boarding the plane. There were two aging stewardesses on board, one had bleached blonde hair and a ponytail extension, and wore bright red lipstick. The other reminded me of Selma Diamond from Night Court. The aircraft was strangely empty, no one sat next to me, I spread out and slept most of the way home.

III. Chicago

Back home, things were pretty much as I'd left them. There was only one voicemail waiting for me on my cell phone - my chiropractor's office had called to remind me of an appointment I'd scheduled for the day after my return. I was so used to straining to understand what people were saying around me that it was an assault on my ears to hear English being spoken everywhere, on the train to my appointment I felt as though people were speaking two inches from my head. Michigan Avenue seemed ridiculously wide, the sidewalk a massive platform of cement under my feet. In addition to a chiropractic adjustment, I had a massage scheduled with Chris, one of the Romanian masseuses on staff. He asked me what was new, I told him I'd just returned from Portugal, and our conversation turned to soccer. I've never heard Chris say so much in all the years I've been going to that office. The second qualifying game between Portugal and Bosnia was in progress, and Chris had been checking the score (Portugal won). We discussed Portugal's chances at making it to the World Cup, the team's star player Christian Ronaldo, and how nice it would be if the office installed an espresso maker in the waiting area.

I stopped by a drug store before getting back on the train, and overheard a cashier say: "the penny is the brown one" to a customer. A wave of sympathy came over me as I realized the customer was a guest from another country, trying to figure out what all the coins in his pocket represented.

Blue line, 8:30 am

On the el this morning two women, one sitting directly behind the other, applied makeup as the train barreled towards the loop. The one in front patted powder onto her face with staccato movements while her counterpart held a mirror in one hand, and imprisoned an eyeball with a lash curler in the other. Several people watched them, two women engaged in unintentional synchronized grooming. Morning theatre for the nine to five crowd.

It reminded me of a moment in Boston years ago when every person who walked past me giggled, or made some inexplicable facial expression as they passed. Finally someone stopped me and said “look who’s following you.” I stood in my tracks as a couple, deep in discussion, approached – the woman wearing the exact same floral print dress as me. I was amused and disgusted – only in Boston, I decided, would strangers make a point of letting me know that I was wearing the same dress as the next woman.

The woman with the powder was quite pregnant – at least six months. The eyeball woman, having completed her ablutions, watched as the powdery woman in front of her began applying lipstick.

We got off at the same stop – the powdery woman and I, and in the moment after she stood from her seat, but before everyone exiting the train made a mad crush for the open doors, I saw that the eyeball woman was pregnant too – and at about the same stage in her pregnancy.

Once off the train, everyone headed for the same exit, and began forcing their way up the stairs like spawning wildlife. I stopped at the elevator bank – the door was open, and while I’d have to pay for this shortcut in the form of inhaled piss molecules, it would be worth the price to bypass the teeming masses on the stairs.

I stepped inside and pressed the button for the street level. Just before the door closed, the powdery pregnant woman stepped in, and we shared a short, silent, aromatic journey.