Bloomington Restaurant Review: Homey Hot Pot

Here in Bloomington, restaurants come and go pretty quickly. Hell, I guess everywhere restaurants come and go pretty quickly. It's a tough business. But there's one restaurant that's stuck around for a while now--since 2017, which is pretty impressive. My friend Joelle first told me about it: "Homie Hot Pot. You cook your own food at the table!"

Y'all, I'm not a cook. It just doesn't come naturally to me. And why the hell should I go to a restaurant and pay for food that I have to cook myself? I may have said something like that to Joelle before dismissing Homie from my head. 

Well, years pass and people change, and yet Homie remains, an assuming little establishment on Walnut, a couple of blocks north of the square. And somehow, I came around to the idea of trying Homie Hot Pot, which I did on a grey, chilly Sunday afternoon in early January.

(I took Joelle, of course.)

It's not a place that has a noticeable ambiance--that's not why people go there. Homie's is All About the Food. It's, like, $20 or $21 for unlimited hotpot stuff and sushi, to say nothing of the peanuts and pickled vegetables they dump on your table pretty much immediately. (Word from the wise: don't linger over-long on these free little noshes. Focus on the food you order.)

Obviously you cook your food on the burners that are embedded on the table. 

                                        

The server takes your order of your broth type and all the meats and vegetables and noodles and rice and dumplings you want, and in short order comes back, plunks your hot pot on the burner, pours your broth in the hot pot, turns the burner on, and then brings you all your (uncooked) food. 

                        

The broth in the hot pots comes to a rapid boil, much like a witch's cauldron, and then you can start plopping the food in the pots. And once the food cooks...then you eat.

 

And eat.

And eat.

And then, if you order sushi, you eat some more.

The verdict? I'd go back. This is a restaurant where you can definitely get value for your money. Furthermore, there are options here for foods that I daresay it's hard to find elsewhere in Bloomington--lotus root, taro, wintermelon, quail egg, and so on. (Did I eat any of these? No I did not. Don't you judge me!) I was a little put off by the whole cooking-my-own-food thing...like I said, I am not a natural cook. How do I know when I have cooked the shrimp or beef or whatever enough? What if I kill myself from food poisoning? I'm still alive now, so I guess I did okay.

When it's cold and grey and wintery out there, this is a good place to retreat to for a hot and hearty soup with your choice of all sorts of tasty things. I can't imagine that it would be the most appealing place to go to in the summertime, but then...maybe that's when I should review this joint for its sushi!

Mid-March Meanderings

There it is.

Every year, sometime in March or April, I have a moment when I feel it--the return of spring. I felt it the day before yesterday, walking back to the library during lunch. It was almost sunny, almost not chilly, and a slight breeze was blowing through the not-yet-budding trees.

We just sprung forward, this last Sunday, so the sun (when we see it) lingers into the evening later. Daffodil shoots are thrusting from the cold, brown ground. Birds are starting to pep up and sing more. And of course, with the slightly-warmer weather, come the tornie warnies; we spent a fair bit of yesterday afternoon at the library taking shelter as a strong storm and possible tornado moved through the county. So, winter has almost relinquished its hold. And as much as I dread the upcoming summer--hey, at least it's not summer in California. I actually had a dream the other night that I lived in California; that the summer was coming; that months and months of brutal sunshine and unrelenting heat were approaching. I was so sad. Suffocated. Trapped.

That time in my life, thank god, is done. I'm coming up on my third year Back Home Again; the exciting novelty of the first year has of course worn away--much like it happens in a relationship after the honeymoon period. But what remains is ideally what happens when the honeymoon is over; the love I have for my home has deepened, hopefully matured. I think I know my home's beauties and flaws, but just like in a relationship, I hope that I will continue discovering more. And like what should happen in a relationship, I shouldn't take my home for granted. Shouldn't ignore it.

(Funny that I seem to know how a good, long-term relationship should work, yet I've managed to sustain...well, none of them. 😂😂😂)

Whatever. The spring is almost upon us, and now it's time to shake off the winter doldrums, put away the heavy sweaters, and plan a few adventures and road trips and maybe just some jaunts around time. Here are a few of the places I'd like to venture forth to in the next couple of months:

Jordan Greenhouse, on campus (although, to be fair, it probably would have been a great place to visit during the worst of the winter months).

Southeast Park: For three years, I've been driving past this little park. From the road, it's a pretty space, with a little stream burbling through. Why haven't I made the time to go there? This spring, I'm going to make sure this happens.

Le Petit Cafe: In my defense, this place is not the easiest place to visit. The hours are funky. But there's a lunch buffet sometimes (a buffet of French food? Um, yes.) And the restaurant scene in Bloomington is a bit of a tricky scene--places come and go--so I need to move fast on this.)

Spring and summer are great times to venture forth and see new places and do new things. Anything you're planning on for the coming warm months?

And Now, December

Now, December. It's a morning with a lowering grey sky, a morning with just enough chill to allow my breath to linger in a little puff. As a child in Florida, walking with my sisters to our school bus stop, I would huff away continuously, delighted by that rare (for Florida) reminder of cold weather. I'd be lying if I said I didn't prounce and puff about in these chilly mornings, even now, as I push into middle age. I've still not acclimated to the delight and gratitude that surge through me whenever I realize that I'm here, home, and able to experience the progression of life, happening in cycle with the season.

Fourteen years ago, around this time I hopped on the bus and rode it into campus for my last classes of my first semester of grad school. Then, I was 24--so young, although silly me, I didn't feel like it at the time. So certain about so much. That certainty is one of the things that dies with youth, I think--thank goodness. I knew I was loved and that I had a life partner who would stick by my side through thick and thin; I knew I was surrounded by fun, young, smart people, each of us enduring a similar grad school experience. I knew that there was so much still ahead of me, if only I could survive grad school.

And then this morning, I hopped on the bus and rode it into campus for my last class of the semester. Perhaps because it's cold and early, perhaps because we have become a population absorbed with our phones, the crowd on the bus was silent, each rider wrapped up in their own thoughts and world. Normally I'd be happy to immerse myself into social media, but this morning, I gazed out the window at the bare trees, the students and faculty hustling about, the grey limestone of the university buildings, the endless rhythms of academia expanding and contracting. I'm no longer 24 or even particularly young; the partner and friends I had have all moved on, although we are all, more or less, in touch. Graduations, jobs and careers, cross-country moves, marriages, divorces, even death have been our lot. Climate change, hope and change, recession and recovery, making America great again which made it worse again. It's like a Billy Joel song, without the music.

I'm older but not wiser, sadder, yet strangely, happier. Certainly more content. Hopefully able to keep things in perspective, to know when to fight, when to give something up as a bad show, when to stop when I'm ahead. Hopefully able to appreciate this fleeting life and its countless privileges, and hopefully able to embrace opportunities and adventures.

Today is the last class of the semester. Somehow, I survived (I mean, really, there was no somehow about it; it's not like I was actually going to not make it through)--at the expense of my social life, perhaps, but I'm enough of a natural hermit to put that shit on hold for a while. But three jobs simply require too much of my mental resources; it's difficult to devote all of my mental energy to one particular job at a time, to say nothing of the other facets of my life. It's not fair to anyone, so at the end of this semester, I'm indefinitely giving up teaching. I'm no longer in the first flush of youth, but I ain't old, either, and it doesn't make sense to me to keep plugging away, working so much, when there are places to go, people to meet, things to create, lessons to learn, winters to wallow in.

Now, December, for a moment.  But not forever.

Remember September

September has drawn to a close. It was a bright, blessed kind of month, which honestly, surprises me a little. I honestly didn't expect to have the time to enjoy myself much. But somehow, I contrived to wrest a little delight from my crowded days and nights.

This was my first full month of teaching my class over at the university. Once more, I am co-teaching with another instructor, which is a life-saver. I don't think I'd be able to do it on my own. It's still a lot of work, but now that I am not totally new to instructing any more, I find I am more comfortable, and slightly less intimidated, which means I can learn stuff, now, too. And weirdly, I rather enjoy my quiet evenings in my office, my head bent over the articles and readings.

My primary work continues to be challenging, but in the best way possible. Right now I am responsible for a unit of 40 people, without immediate supervision. Of course that means far more work than I can do in the 37.5 hours per week that I can do the work in, but even that is an opportunity to hone my prioritizing skills and my willingness to delegate. And that's the important lesson that I learned this month: sometimes it's essential to ask for help, because if you don't, you won't be able to provide the best support to the people who depend on you. All along, folks have been offering to assist me during this transitory time, and at first, I didn't want to accept. I felt like if I accepted help, or delegated, I was shirking my own work; that I was admitting that I couldn't do it all and that I was weak. Finally, however, I accepted, and whether it was that a psychological burden fell off my shoulders as soon as I asked for help, or that the help was substantial (I suspect both), I almost immediately noticed an improvement in my ability to catch up, then keep up. Ask for help, folks: we will all be the better for it. And guess what? Most people want to help others, myself included.

I've had a little bit of an opportunity to enjoy myself, in one of the most simple yet lovely ways possible. We had a lot of ridiculously warm, sunny days in September, but also, some fall teaser days. And on September 22, the first day of fall...it actually behaved like fall. And since then, we've had some bright, beautiful, almost-warm days; some breezy evenings; some misty mornings.

It's the easiest thing in the world for me to pause in the middle of whatever I'm doing--rushing out the apartment to work in the morning, trundling along Kirkwood at lunch time, laying in bed late at night--and just remember: even though I don't currently have time to do all the things I want to, I am still living my dream.

I even managed to spend some time with friends this month. On one memorable Sunday evening, my friend Jessica came down from Indy and we gorged ourselves on an obscene amount of sushi, and then spent the rest of the evening lolling about on couches, agreeing that we had no regrets. (Still don't. In fact, sashimi sounds really good right now.)

And on a perfect fall Saturday, my colleague Erica and I headed out to Musgrave Orchards, and then Oliver Winery, for apples, and cider, and a picnic of cheese and more cheese.

It was a golden September, in a golden year. Let's hope October is similarly splendid.

The Year Is Slowing Down...But I'm Not!

It’s a warm, hazy day, one that straddles the cusp going into late August. Outside, the air is humid; the trees sway gently in an almost too-lazy-to bother breeze. The leaves on these trees are, for the most part, still lush and green and abundant. But like a weirdo playing Where’s Waldo, I keep my eyes peeled for the rarity: a yellowing leaf here, a rusty one there. Every now and then, one falls to the ground.

"The Poplars 1914" -T.C. Steele

We’ve still got another month before summer officially ends, but in my brain, which has been craving fall since our blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spring, summer officially came to an end yesterday.

Today the fall semester of college classes at IU begins, and once more, I am a college instructor.

Currently, I am sitting in the university library, listening to the ping and chime of the elevator and the chatter of students already hard at work (I’m impressed; it’s literally the first day of class); I’m killing time before I meet up with my fantastically British co-instructor. We’re going to grab a quick coffee and rev each other up (which will probably mean I work myself into an anxious tizzy while she gives me some side-eye and humors me with very calm advice) before our fall class starts.

I enjoy teaching, even though it’s a hell of a lot of work, and students can sometimes be harsh and unkind. And good lord, I am still very new to this. But my grandparents, along with from too many hours spent reading the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder, kind of instilled in me the need to do better, do more, improve, don’t quit. So here I am, once more. And now that I am in the library, surrounded by young people studying, immersing themselves in information and knowledge, I am glad I’m here.

The days are long, but the years are short. My Mondays in particular will be brutal this fall; I’ve got a lot keeping me busy. And while the minutes and hours of the next few months may drag, but the days and months themselves will fly by, and very soon I will find myself sitting at this very desk, and instead of looking out at some lush, verdant trees, I’ll be seeing bare branches, gray skies, perhaps even snow falling. The days are long, but the years are short. I’ll be exhausted, no doubt, and grateful for a slowing-down in pace, but probably reluctant, too, to relinquish this part of my life.

___________________________________________________________________________

It’s later; our first class is over. There are nine, plus myself and my co-instructor; we are a small group, enough to cluster around the long conference table. It feels more intimate and democratic than last semester, and I find myself looking forward to the months ahead, despite the hard work that lies in store for me. “I like keeping busy,” I tell people. “That way I don't have the time to make poor life choices."

The rain that was threatening earlier is still dithering, still trying to decide if it wants to do more than spit itself down at random intervals. I’m grateful for the clouds; it helps keep the heat at bay, and I can pretend, just a little, that fall is on it’s way.

When does fall start for you? Of course, there’s the autumnal equinox, at which point fall technically begins. But there’s that moment when fall appears for each of us individually, in our own heads and imaginations. For one of my friends, fall begins with the first football game of the season. For another friend, it’s when the air finally turns chilly. For retail establishments, I suppose it’s whenever they haul out their seasonally-appropriate merch. For myself, it’s when school starts, when the kids trot back to school. Perhaps it’s because I dislike summer so much, I will mentally end it as soon as I can, seize upon whatever will terminate that wretched season.

There’s another way that I can tell that fall is here, or at least fast approaching--something that I noticed, even during my season-starved childhood in Florida and exile in California. In early September, the light changes. The sunlight may still be warm, but something about its quality changes. It’s more gentle, and the slant of it is different, particularly in the afternoon and evening. It becomes benevolent, even a bit calming, and seems to say, “The year is slowing down. So should you.”

Not sure that that’s an option for me, but doesn’t mean that I won’t lift my face up and soak up that lovely autumnal glow, once it starts. In the meantime, I reckon I can go to a local retail establishment and pretend it’s fall there. (Spoiler alert: I may have already done so.)

Being Green

Today at work, when I was buried ass to eyeballs in files and notes and paperwork (with nary a book in sight), a random realization came to me: fourteen years ago today, I came to Bloomington, Indiana for the first time as an adult.

That's a rather silly sort of anniversary, isn't it? 14 years. Not that it's a decade or 25 years or anything like that; not it's not that I moved to Bloomington just then; not even that it was my first time in Bloomington. But for whatever reason, this happy little anniversary stands out to me.

It was a whirlwind trip, that trip--I flew in early on a Friday morning, giddy from a lack of sleep, and was back in Florida by Sunday night. But oh, I packed so much into those few days--I explored, I secured housing for myself, I wished graduating students well as they posed with their parents for pictures in front of the Sample Gates, I met a fellow that I would soon fall madly in love with; I listened to Irish music at a co-op cafe, I got re-acquainted with my uncle and his girlfriend; I met up with some Internet acquaintances for an early-evening picnic in an enchanting park, and together we tortured a Peep and a Peter Pan doll.

And I saw spring. A real, proper spring, with green everywhere. Sure, I knew green--the dusky, darker green of the palms and pines and scrubby brush of Florida. But this was a green that I had never encountered...a vivid, lush, almost painfully bright green. It was a green that seemed to flaunt itself, like it knew that it was in the rudest of health, and it was boasting of it. Oh, it was green.

But nothing was as green as I was.

Fourteen years later...My uncle's girlfriend is now my aunt. Those students that I wished well are now 14 years older, and while I never learned their names or even the first thing about them, other than they had proud parents, I still think of them and hope their parents are still proud, and that they remember their university years with joy. The fellow that I met and fell madly in love with...well, ours is a goofy sort of story, but we are still characters in each other's tale. The little co-op cafe is no more, and most of the folks I met for the picnic have moved on to different places, different partners. That enchanting park is still there, is a place I drive past all the time, is a place I still love to go.
And me? What of me?

I wanted different things then-- my vision was a bit more limited, I think. I wanted to do well in grad school, make good grades; marriage and family and career and everything Beyond Grad School were just abstracts. Research papers and projects and stultifying reading assignments loomed large, and I don't think I saw much past that. If the me of fourteen years ago met the me of now, I think we would--at best--cordially dislike each other. The battles that mattered to me at 24, I quite often can't be bothered to give a damn about at 37. Weirdly, I want more from life and expect more from myself now than I did fourteen years ago, but I'm a happier person, all the same.

Who's to say that happiness will last? Green springs swell with life and hope...and give way to fruit and death and fallow times, and god knows I've seen plenty of those in the fourteen years that have lapsed. There will be more fruitless and fallow times ahead in my life--hell, I just exited one--and perhaps in another fourteen years, I will look back on this green-and-gold spring evening and shake my head over who I am now.

"Get out of your own head," Older Indy Grrl might say, "Get off your ass and sit outside in this gentle twilight you're writing about and see the spring beauty while you can."

And yet here I am, still typing.

Maybe I'm not so different than I was, after all.

But I'm kind of curious about what happened to that Peter Pan doll.

Hoosier Broad in a Hoosier Nation

When I was growing up, on the weekends my mother would send me over to my grandparents' house. I lived for these weekends--my grandmother doted on me, and my grandfather went along with my grandmother in most things. Every Friday night, when I came over, we would go for a stroll around our neighborhood, walking along the cracked sidewalks and sweating in the Florida humidity and talking of lord only knows what.

But I do know what. "Tell me about the olden days," I'd cajole them. And they would.

I remember my Boppa telling me a little about his high school years in 1930s Tipton, Indiana--now, this was a man who was Hoosier to his core. He was quiet, whip-smart, hardworking, and humble about it. So when he would talk about his years playing basketball in high school, there was never any bragging in his tone. It wasn't until after he passed away that I learned from his sister, my Great Aunt Wilma, that he was something of an MVP on his team. After high school, there wasn't much of a question of him having any sort of future in basketball--even if it weren't for the Great Depression, and then the war, my grandfather's people were tenant farmers, working hard to just keep body and soul together.  But he was damned good at his basketball, and even into his last years, he loved watching the game.

It wasn't just my grandfather, either. Basketball is kind of a major thing here in the Heartland--basketball and corn. We play one and eat the other. Now, I am not a sports girl at all--usually, I would bracket basketball in with all the other sportsball stuff. But I am a Hoosier girl, and I've been meaning to get to a game for while.

(A while being for, oh, say, the last two years.)

My cubicle mate at work diligently, dare I day religiously, attends a lot of the women's basketball games. First, because yay! women! and second, because they are a lot cheaper than the men's basketball games. So I hear some updates from her, from time to time, on how "the team" is doing. And recently, I heard "the team" was doing pretty well. Like, championship well.

Combine that with a friend from the big city in town for the weekend, a couple of rainy days, a slight panic attack of "Oh my god what can we do?", and some free tickets, and I (along with my city-slicker friend) got to enjoy THE HOOSIER NATION experience.

(It's not a complete Hoosier Nation experience without a little pre-gaming at Nick's.) 

Usually, the women's basketball games don't generate a huge attendance. But because we hit the day that they were doing the WNIT Finals, and WE were in the finals, and it was at OUR stadium...we broke a record. 13,007 people showed up for this game. 

(Not sure if the Candy-Striper Dude counted) 

(Nonetheless, there were a lot of us)

I know next to nothing about basketball. But I know it's fast-paced, I know basketball is a thing here, I know my grandfather loved it...and I figured this would be a fantastic Bloomington/Hoosier Experience for the both me and my friend. And it was!
 

It was the largest crowd to attend a IU Women's Basketball game. It was rather exciting to be part of IU History, even if it was a rather modest sort of legacy when compared with all the other records and victories.

More importantly, with that many people, the crowd was lit! And, I quickly realized--a crowd really helps make the game. Bet the cheerleaders and band really appreciated having an engaged (and huge) audience for this event.

I can, and am, as cynical about sportsball as the next person--the enormous amounts of money poured into athletics, the abuses of power, the scandals, as well as my vague suspicion that sportsball is as much of an opiate for the masses as religion or movies--all give me the feeling that this (along with probably every other facet of western consumer culture in which I am, to greater or lesser degrees, a willing participant) is...well, problematic, for lack of a better word. But I'm not one to denounce an activity or entertainment just because I have some issues with it, and nor am I a person to deny myself the enjoyment of that activity. Particularly since, as the game commenced, I was pleasantly bombarded with memories of a very patient grandfather attempting to explain the rules of basketball to his youngest granddaughter. I don't know that I believe in ghosts, but I do believe in being haunted (or accompanied by) powerful memories of the folks we love, and it felt like my Boppa's company was close by during that game.

Also, we ("we", ha) won the game. Icing on the Hoosier Cake.

Will I get season tickets to the Women's games next year? Or even (gasp!) shell out for a ticket to some of the men's games? I don't want to say for certain...but I am very much tempted, if it means carrying on a bit of my grandfather's memory, as well as becoming more embedded in my adopted home.

Season Snapshot: March 2018

I've survived another winter here in the Heartland! Yesterday was the first day of spring--although, Indiana being Indiana, you wouldn't have known it. By the time I headed home from work yesterday, the snow was falling in earnest, and the traffic was creeping along. Half an hour later, when I got home, I paused to drool over this gorgeous moment:

Spring, schming.

It'll happen soon enough. In the meantime, the only thing for it was to do my chores, hunker down, light a candle, drink some wine, and relish the hygge moment. (Yup, I'm one of those people. I loves me some hygge.)

Finally, a cozy home of my own. God help the poor fool who ever tries to talk me out of this lovely life I've been given. 

Another Homecoming

Well and so! Another August--my second one back here in Bloomington--draws to a close. Other than a few brutally hot days, it's been unusually mild and dry, and while I'm no expert when it comes to leaf science (is that a thing?), I wonder if this weather has anything to do with the red and orange pops of color that are already here in the trees.

With the end of August comes the inevitable return of the students. And here is a rather unexpected development--the students are not the only ones returning to Indiana University. I am, too.

Two weeks ago, I stood before a class of library science students. Eleven and twelve and thirteen years ago, I had been one of those students, sitting in that same classroom, prepared to absorb the information my instructors were about to impart. Now, I am one of those instructors, teaching Collection Development. Strange to think that I'm now a little bit of an expert, at least in terms of having over a decade of professional, practical public library experience, which is apparently a marketable commodity.

So. It seems I've come home, in every sense of the word.

The basement halls and lockers around which  I and my friends and fellow students hung around now echo--other students cluster around them, of course, but all of my people--even the most of the professors I knew--have shuffled on to other things--other jobs, retirement, even death. Now, down these halls I walk, an almost middle-aged woman, missing those who populated my youth.  I try to hold myself rather accountable--"I'm not chasing some lost youth or fanciful second chance, am I?"  But still, I'm simply grateful to be here once more. It's another way to be useful and occupied and to try and lead a life of significance, if not success.

And I now have a solid reason to spend time on this beautiful campus, observing the lively, hopeful students, being challenged intellectually and professionally, roaming the stacks of the Wells Library.

Here, at least, things have not changed. These books, also my friends, have not left. They greet me, as they greet all, with a studied, passive indifference, but they accept me. They are steady, and change only as much as the people who read them (or revise them) change and project their own thoughts and interpretations onto the texts.

Most comforting of all: the campus, while now boasting of old buildings with sometimes-new names, and a few new buildings and cosmetic features, hasn't changed much either. It's still lush and green and a little bit abandoned in high summer, a little bit burnt-brown and a lot crowded in the late summer, but the land endures. The thoughts and personalities and hopes and sadnesses and worries and insouciant joys of thousands of students seep their way into the trees, the paths, the soil, becoming part of the story of our university, becoming the stories that nobody hears, but that endure nonetheless. A dozen years ago, I was one of those students, and my story became part of the university. Now I'm back to write another chapter.  

February: The Anti-Love Lettter

Dear February,

To hell with you.

No, seriously, bugger off. You were a lousy, weird month, and I am not sorry to see the back of you. What you lacked in length, you more than made up for in sheer, ridiculous douchebaggery. Pretty much the best part of the month were the last few hours, in which I hung out with friends and played games and drank all the drinks and stewed in a ginormous vat of rage. The fact that we were under tornado watches and warnings that last evening served only as a metaphor for the chaos you brought down on us.

The Bad

First, my grandmother. February, you took my bright, beautiful, brave Mawga from us, and you broke our hearts. Forget that she was 95 and ready to go; this is on you and I'll never forgive you for that and screw any logic that says otherwise.

Now let's talk about the weather. I mentioned your tornados...now let's talk about the seventy degree weather you saw fit to bless us with over the course of several days. It was damned surreal to be stumbling around in a fog of grief, with a thousand-yard stare, and being dimly aware of the crowds of people walking around in shorts and brilliant smiles, enjoying the unexpected reprieve. Whatever happened to weather to match my mood? And while we're at it...what happened to WINTER?

In what is hopefully the last part of the saga of my Never-Ending Headcold/Sinus Infection/Bronchitis/Costochondritis from hell, I took yet another course of antibiotics. This stuff...it jacked me up but good. Totally suppressed my appetite, made me sick to my stomach, got my heart racing. So I spent 10 days of you feeling hangry, anxious, and vaguely wondering if I was experiencing the world's longest heart attack.

The most ominous thing happened right at the end of the month:

Rest in peace, Beatrice. You were a beautiful glass and you followed me all the way from California and you served me well, and gave me a lot of wine that got me through some bad nights. I'm sorry you died at the bottom of a sink in Indiana. You deserved a better death than that.


Now, the Good. Because, yes, there was some good. 

February, you were a month of friends. There were movie nights and Mexican food and jaunts up to Indy and all sorts of secrets shared and inside jokes created. Making female friends has been difficult for me--absurdly, I seem to have bonded with more dudes this last year--but I'm finally building up some bonds with ladies. My friend Diana has been an especially rock-solid source of support and laughter...even if she is terrified of cats.

After my Mawga passed away, some of my friends risked spending a Sunday afternoon with me, and we went out to Gaden Kachoe Shing, the Buddhist monastery here in our town, and made cookies for the Lunar New Year, and gazed at the extravagant beauty in the temple, and then we went out for a walk on the grounds and I cried at random times. And then we sat down by a lake and gazed out at the stunning afternoon (Okay, fine, the weather was kind of nice and I won't totally hold it against you, February) and made plans for the coming months, and I would occasionally speak of my grandparents and look out at the trees and land and water that were probably very similar to what they saw growing up a couple of hours north of where I live now.

Basically, I have spent almost an entire year trying to embed myself in the community, build support networks, make friends. And in this wretched February, I learned who my friends are: people that I allow myself to feel vulnerable with. People to whom I know I can reach out when I am in a sad and rotten place. I am a lucky, lucky woman, and if all I ever have in my life are friends, I know that it's been a life well lived. 

One other excellent thing happened this month...on Valentine's Day, no less: 

The divorce is final. It's done. It's over. And given the lengthy, rambling nature of this odyssey, and the rewards that have come from it, this deserves its own day in the blog sun. But I had to rejoice here, just a tiny bit. 

Coincidentally (or not), this leads us into...

What the Hell is This Even? Let me Poke it With a Stick and Ponder It: 

Moving along to matters of the heart. Or the hoo-hoo. Or whatever. I have a few friends that are actively trying to pursue this whole dating thing. Generally, I find it more than a little bit horrifying.  I watch them tie themselves in knots over it, and I try to counsel them with probably shitty advice, and shudder at the thought of it all. One of the biggest reasons why I avoided dating since I left Scoots Magoo was because I didn't know what I wanted, and didn't want anyone to be the collateral damage in my fight against myself. But during February, I somehow got it in my head to...experiment? Stick a toe in the water? See what I'd been missing out on? So I did. I stuck a toe in the water. And I actually learned a few things...

First...

• I know my worth way more now than I did even a few years ago. Guess what? I'm an attractive, fiercely smart, honest, funny, loyal, professionally successful kind of gal. And yet...
• I am so very oblivious to if or when a person is interested in me. 
• The longer I go without affection, the easier it gets. That, and the fact that I am not plagued by the biological compulsion to procreate, means that I have the luxury of not feeling the need to "find someone" now now now. 
• Here's the thing about Friends with Benefits: If you don't behave like a friend, you don't get the benefits. 
• There are two kinds of guys that I am afraid of: guys that think they are cute (they were so, so mean to me for most of my childhood and adolescence) and guys that I might like. (If I like them, they have the ability to hurt me.) So I react to my fear by preemptively turning into a defensive bitch. That's something I should probably work on if I ever seriously decide to start dating again.
• I do not want or like anxiety in my life, and "dating" (I use those quotes because I'm honestly not sure if anyone ever actually dates anymore)/sex/feels gives me BAD anxiety. 
• The longer I am single, the more possessive I am of my life, my physical space, and my emotional resources. I like the life I have, and I am not at all convinced that dating would integrate well into it. Which means...
• I still don't know what the hell I want. 

It makes me so very grateful that I spent most of my first year back not dealing with this dating insanity nonsense shit stuff. It's just so...so...well, when I don't have words for what it is, you know it's something altogether...something.

So that's it. February, you really packed a wallop. It wasn't nice knowing you. You weren't the worst month of my life, but you sure as shit gave it your best shot. You didn't kill me. You put me through a little bit of hell in a few ways, and I guess maybe that's the final good thing: when I go through hell, I survive every goddamn time.

No Love,
The Indy Grrl

Indiana Homecoming: A List of Loves

The plane touched down, and I awoke from my light snooze, and tried to focus on the February landscape and ignore the wretched little children thumping around in the row to the back of me. Behind me was Florida, my past, the remnants of my family. Before me...well, what, really? The rest of my life, I suppose. Spring approaching, then summer, and fall, and so on, until I run out of seasons and time. But that's some heavy shit to have on the brain when stumbling off an airplane, so I'll try to keep the existential angst to a minimum.

For years, when hanging out in airports, waiting to catch my flights "home" to California, I would sit at the bar and order double-vodka drinks and text people and try to list in my head all the reasons why I should be happy and grateful about going back to California. "I have a fantastic job with supportive colleagues; I have kitties who adore me, a husband who gets me and gives me my space..." One could say I was counting my blessings, but really, let's be honest: I was simply slapping lipstick on a pig.

Yet, oddly...the habit has stuck. And while I am pleased as punch to be coming home to Indiana, and don't have to talk myself into being happy to be back home, it's kind of a thing now, to list all the things that make me happy about coming home. So, here goes:

• Hands down, the happiest of the happy-making things that I love about it here right now: the weather. Oh my god. It changes all the frickin time. Before, in That Place, the only reason it was necessary to check the weather was to see how hot it was going to get. Nothing else really changed. God, the monotony was awful. But here...it's never a dull moment. The morning I flew home this last time, the clouds were hanging low in the sky, and while it wasn't nearly cold enough, at least it looked like February. 

(Another February, but it works)

• This town is filled, completely FILLED, with young people. Sure, god bless 'em, they are a bunch of clueless twits for the most part, but they keep Bloomington fresh, interesting, throbbing with youth and stupidity. And they make me so very, very, very glad not to be in my 20s anymore. 

• My work. Before I took this job, my musical tastes ranged from "Def Leppard is da bomb" to "Enya is the epitome of enlightened elegance". But now...now I can talk to my sisters and their partners about music and musicians and emerging artists and while I wouldn't say my tastes are particularly refined, but at least I know a thing or two about a thing or two, and have discovered some fantastic music. 

• More about my work: for the last few years at my old job, I felt I had stagnated. I also felt that my professional ambitions had been...not actively thwarted, but certainly stunted through a lack of encouragement. However, now, in a new environment, with a different kind of supervisor, I find myself growing a tiny bit bolder, more willing to take risks without having to ask permission (and then finding out that the risks weren't really all that risky), more likely to be given extra responsibilities that actively boost my leadership experience.

• My home: For the past almost year, my cats and I have been hanging out, renting a room from a long-time friend. It's worked out pretty well, particularly as this friend is usually on the road. But the time has come for me to finally establish a homestead of my own, and so, in a couple of days, I'll be getting the keys to my very own apartment, which will be shared with B, who is rolling into town early next week. It's a probably unremarkable apartment, but it's right around the corner from where I live, and has a lovely view from the balcony, and enough space to fill with  an odd assembly of furniture inherited from my grandmother, and the collective books and stuffed animals and makeup odds and ends of the two oddities who will shortly take up residence there.

• The seasons. Really, this goes hand-in-hand with the weather. Both change, although the weather is slightly less reliable. Nonetheless, I am not sure there is anything more comforting to my weary, heartsore self than to look at at the bare trees, and remind myself that in less than a couple of months, there will be verdant life springing forth, and the landscape will change and revive from its months of hibernation and austerity. Time passes. Healing happens. Life and death ebb and flow, each in their turn. And if it happens to the land, it will happen to me. 

I lost a month of my life.

I mean, I knew exactly where it got to, but still, it's lost. Gone.

On October 30, after a long night of some pretty hard partying, I woke up tired and achey with a sore throat. Thus began the WORST headcold of my life--which lingered throughout all of November and into December, and in fact turned into a sinus infection and bronchitis, and possibly walking pneumonia. (I'm waiting to see on that last one.) This wretched epizoodie from hell was still going strong on November 8, when my friends and I gathered together and threw back drinks called "Nasty Woman" and "Putin's Puppet" and "The Bad Hombre" and prepared for the election results. We were trying not to jinx anything, but I would be lying if I said we weren't looking at each other with hope, and excitement, and glee. 

As the night went on, the mood went downhill. A lot of our friends are LGBTQA+, and they started making weak, grim jokes about the internment camps. Anna sat on Michael's lap and began to cry. My friend John saw the expression on my face and silently switched over to making me gin and tonics. 

I cried myself to sleep that night. 

The next morning, I woke up with a crying hangover, probably an actual hangover, and my sickness still wreaking havoc on my body. Like so many of the folks in my country, I was decimated, devastated, disgusted, and frightened. I still was, 10 days later, when I flew down to Florida for an extended Thanksgiving holiday. 

And so, I lost a month. An autumn month, at that. And then when I emerged (still coughing) into the cold, grey morning of December 1, I noticed three things: 

1. It got cold, at some point. Goodbye, fall, I barely knew ye.

2. I somehow managed to inexplicably sprain my toe.

3. The upstairs toilet flooded. 

The following days haven't been nearly as bad, but I am still kind of bewildered about how I lost a whole month. Only in the last ten days have I really felt like I've opened my eyes again to my surroundings and hopes and plans. The days are long, but the years are short, and when you've lost a month of your year, it gets even shorter.

October Road Trip #1

It's been a busy autumn, so far. Not as chilly or gloomy as I would like, but hey, at least it's not ball-drippingly hot outside. A vast improvement from That Place.

The other day, I talked a couple of friends into doing a road trip. This is one of my favorite things to do now that I am back home--drive out to maybe one place that I want to see, and take my time getting to and from there, and just being open to seeing whatever beauty and quirky thing I might happen upon in the meantime.

Brian and Ryder were my partners in crime for this particular jaunt. They are good fellas, capable of intelligent conversation and not being total douche-kebabs, and they are willing to humor me when I wax enthusiastic about the unparalleled beauty of Hoosierland. Brian in particular is a helpful sort of person, as he travels through the countryside for his job, and can direct us to interesting little hidden places like this gem:

We eventually got to where we were planning to go...

There are a lot of places throughout Indiana that offer various fall-themed shenanigans. Since this was a rather hastily-planned outing, we settled on Chandler's Farm. First, we hopped aboard a rather muddy tractor, which hauled us out to a rather more muddy field, and we selected our punkins. (I should disclose: I've yet to do anything with this punkin. I fully expect it to sit on my front porch for the next month, in its original punkin state, until the neighbors complain.) Then on to the corn maze!

I've never been in a corn maze, so this was of course high on my Indiana bucket list. It was about as hokey as I expected it to be, yet still fun. That's what I've been learning about, in most of my junkets and jaunts around the state: it's all about the company you keep. 

(Angel, one of the dogs at the orchard, was not too impressed with the company he kept.)

After spending far too much time and money in the general store, we continued on our meandering road trip. And we really did meander. The early clouds and mist cleared up and gave way to a golden afternoon, and we detoured through Morgan Monroe State Forest for a bit. 

I have no idea how old these trees are. I'm sure they have not been here since when my own ancestors came through these parts, but I do like to think of them seeing these same kinds of scenes of these lands.

And although I love these journeys around the state, sometimes, the best sights are ones very close to home, as we were reminded as we were approached home that evening:

I've seen plenty of deer in our neighborhood, and Slumlord refers to them as pests, nuisances, rodents with long legs, but I never get tired of seeing the deer. And this was the first time I saw a buck! I've not yet gotten tired of seeing these magnificent creatures.