THE GREAT GADFLY:

In The Event That This Fantastic Voyage Should Turn To Erosion...

1. At the beginning of this week, I was informed that this Friday would be the last day of the long-term freelance toilfest I've been enduring for the past eight months. Considering my hand-to-mouth jetsetter lifestyle, I should most likely be suffering substantial freak-outs right now. But, well, other than a glazed veneer of overwhelmed numbness at times, I'm pretty okay about this news. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm relieved. After all, nothing like unemployment to get someone a job - hopefully my forthcoming "I can't eat and I'll be evicted soon" schtick will appeal to some prospective short-term employer. I'll practice the nutrient-starved empty stares and hypoglycemic trembles over the weekend and hopefully have it down pat in time for the new year. Though who knows if that will be necessary, considering...

2. I'm hauling my burnt ass out of Chicago and high-tailing it back to New York just as soon as I'm able. Yup. It's no longer a matter of "if" - it's now officially a matter of "when". Hey man, I've given the midwest my best shot. I attempted the whole coming-back-to-from-whence-I-came thing, the simpler-life thing, the NYC-isn't-the-center-of-the-world malarkey, and the result has been a resounding failure. And to assuage all yez Sheekahko deep-dish eaters out there, I will freely admit that in the Dear John letter of my relationship with this city, Windy City, it's not you - it's me. Can we just be friends?

Here's the thing about Chicago, having observed it as I have from the perspective of someone who spent the first two decades of his life in the midwest, and most of the third decade in New York, then recently returning to the midwest:

Life here is a lifelong investment. As in, from birth onward.

Okay, let me break that statement down:

Chicago is a great city. Culture? Yes. Energy? Absolutely. Social outlets? Yeah, why not. There's stuff in this city - cool stuff. Pretty stuff. Legendary stuff. It would be sad if Chicago one day disappeared. Really. You would notice if it went away, and you would not be happy about it.

Now, okay - Chicago's great and all, and it appears to be full of hope and promise and possibilities - and depending on how you approach the city, this can be true.

IF.

If you were born in or around Chicago, and if you've built up a network of relatives and classmates and childhood friends and dorm buddies and co-workers from those summer jobs back when you were in your late teens and families of ex-significant-others with whom you managed to stay in good graces and guys you've been catching the game with since you were 12, well, I'd say Chicago is one big shining pink jewel waiting for you to set it in your crown.

This is a city where people know each other, and always have, and exist in a bubble of familiarity and comfort. And there's nothing wrong with that. Unless you're on the outside of that bubble looking in. This is a place where people grow up knowing each other, and don't have much need to cast a wider net. When people go out in Chicago, they go out in groups. There's no wacky New York Social Life of "yeah, well, I'll be at such-and-such bar tonight, and if you wanna hang out, come on down, and otherwise, I'm sure so-and-so will be there, and I'll just veg out and get my drank on, no big whoop."

No. This ain't how we roll in the big C.

New York, meanwhile, is different in that it is where individuals flock to find culture, to be found, to congregate with a new flock, to learn about the big, crazy world, to create a family of one's own out of nothing but conversation and chemistry, to say "THIS IS WHAT I AM" and that becomes who you are, to walk into a supermarket alone and walk out having made three new friends in the produce aisle, to run across people you thought you'd never see again on a regular basis, to have sensibilities tested and twisted and expanded, and to let the damn world flow through you for a change.

This, of course, is not for everyone. I've found in the past two years that it's most decidedly for ME.

And sure, I'm willing to concede to the probability that I've been forever tainted by the experience of growing up in New York. I lived there from age 23-30 and I developed my way of interacting with the world from engaging in that city's culture. I defined my work ethic there. I defined my social ethic. I figured out what a relationship means to me while living in that city. I formed my own style and asthetic as a writer and pop culture hack when I lived out there. I produced plays out there, and had lots of work published.

Well, um - I kinda THRIVED out there.

And "thriving" isn't a word I can use here, even on the most modest of levels. In fact, materialistically speaking, I'd list this as one of the most crappified poop valleys of my life thus far. Materialistically speaking, that is. I may be economically depressed and I may feel professionally stifled and I might suffer from what could be considered some kind of sullen cultural dysphoria, but I'm not a gloomy gus these days. Not at all. Life's great.

I've made peace with my experience here. This isn't hell on earth - it's only Illinois. The boring, simple truth is that this just isn't a place for me. Fine. So be it. My kind isn't exactly wanted here, or perhaps I just don't want the kind that is exactly here. The nasally, squonky SHEE-KAAH-GOH accent still slices bloody wounds in my ears whenever I hear it fart through the air like ducks having sex. Chicago office logic will always escape me, riddled as it is to the core with a passionate commitment toward the exact opposite of efficiency at all times. Oh, you've heard my Chicago complaints far too often before, so I'll cut it off here and just leave it at this: The fundamental character of this city is not horrible or cancerous or evil, but it's slowly driving me absolutely dotty.

Good things about living here? I write every day now. I didn't before I moved to Chicago. Furthermore, I've lived in an apartment by myself for nearly two years - never had that experience, and most likely I never will again after I move back to New York, with its crazy a$$ rents. I was in a position to be by myself with a computer in a cozy little shoebox for a long time, and as a result I picked up the habit of writing as a part of my daily life. And I doubt it would have happened had I not come here.

So, really - I'm not embittered or feeling antagonized or in any way significantly disgruntled about my time here in Chicago.

But it IS time to go.

So, yeah. I've been giving this move a lot of thought. How many people can say they had to go crawling back to New York City because the midwest chewed 'em up and spit 'em out? Isn't it supposed to work the other way around? Me Like Bizarro World.

I look forward to going back and re-establishing myself with those people and places and things that I've come to realize I really, truly value and need - I was burnt out on New York when I decided to schlep it to Chicago a couple of years ago. I decided I needed quiet and cheap and isolated if I was going to recharge my batteries. And, well, that's what I got. But I'm not a quiet, cheap and isolated kind of guy.

Okay, well, I AM cheap. But only when I'm poor. Which is always. So, yeah.

I look forward to saying I loved my home so much that I gave up on it, went somewhere else, and then realized that I needed to go back. Like the ink on my arm, it can't rub off. Like the decision I made almost fifteen years ago to quit eating meat, there's no "why" to the decision anymore, it's just a part of who I am and what I'm about. It's nothing romantic, political, artsy-fartsy, idealistic or affected: it's simply an undeniable part of my anatomy.

Now if only I had some money....

3. I'm rockin' the E-bay. Before my last big move, I took the online garage sale world by storm and raised almost three hundred bucks from old books, CDs and tchotchkes with which I could stand to part. And so it goes again. Time to look at everything in my home through one of three filters: KEEP, CRAP, or SELL.

And so it's begun. I threw a trio of items on the ol' E-bay last night and they've already doubled in bidding. Eighteen smackeroos and counting. Aw, yeah. MY EMPIRE AWAITS!

Meanwhile, I'm starting a pile for donations and a pile for the dumpster. I'm taking a zen laxative and letting it all clear out, honey.

I'm almost as excited about the upcoming moving-out purge'n'sell ritual as I am about the actual move. The only thing better than getting cool new stuff is clearing big patches of space where once was a big pile of stuff to schlep and dust and deal with.

Tapes - I have so many tapes. Audio cassettes and video cassettes. Guess when I popped one into a tape deck? Hmmm, I remember the 12th of Never quite well, it was a very good day indeed. Meanwhile, you would not BELIEVE how many tapes I have.

And clothes - pit-stained, hole-in-the-toe, ripped-ass, dorky-stripey, never-quite-fit piles of stank ass clown costumes. Ugh.

KEEP, CRAP, or SELL. Period. Hoooo-yeah.

If nothing else, the next couple of months should make for an interesting rant or two, huh?