We are all starting to understand something that's felt abundantly clear to me for years.

Last Friday night, I stumbled down the hair grease-covered stairs of Ruby for my best friend's birthday. Lourdes was upset that many of her friends did not show up and I could understand her grievances.

Barrett and I often discuss the rewards and challenges faced as college students in the city. We get first hand experience of the immense amounts of culture, music, and lifestyles that our peers in other isolated towns don't. Once they graduate, their subsequent years will be spent saving money, finding jobs, renting a first apartment and making new friends in an environment unlike the ones of their childhood and their collegiate years. Meanwhile, we will already be established and connected to the city like second skin, assure of ourselves and our surroundings.

But one of the problems, the inevitable problem, is the distance public transportation provides. Because we can all just hop on a train or a bus, we feel no need to stay close to maintain our connections. Freshman year, we lived in the dorms, but sophomore year created new challenges: rent checks, electric bills, and a longer commute. It's not enough to merely walk down the stairs to visit a friends room in Munroe Hall. Now, it's a twenty minute walk - perhaps a bus or train ride - to see a friend. We disperse for different reasons. But still, because we are older (and wiser?), we no longer feel the need to maintain those relationships. We are not confined to one dorm, or one campus, or one neighborhood. There are jobs and internships and responsibilities, and why should we feel obligated?

That's what I want to ask myself. Why?

Well, why not?

And also, doesn't that make everything before that seem, false?

I'm in the position now, only a month away from senior year, in which I can look back wholeheartedly at my freshman year and wonder if those friendships were really friendships and not merely a way to pass the time, to feel acquainted, to feel like a true college student. Do we really care about each other, or do we find in each person some sort of convenience to mask the problems that arise from living in the city, living on your own, living with a strange, gigantic amount of freedom at such a young age?

I think of Lourdes and don't have to worry about this. I think of Barrett and Colleen and Hafsa and Kristen and don't have to think twice about those friendships. Those are true, and real, and monumental.

But then I think about the other girls, the other guys, and whether or not we are silently using each other, to what? To not feel so insecure, so unsure, so strange. We tell ourselves that we are mature, and refined, and special, but it all feels like a joke, and even though we have this culture and LIFE on our finger tips, we still want to just drop by someone's place and "hang out".

My weekdays now are an amalgamation of classes and jobs and internships. I don't have the time to make small talk. I can't just "hang out" and I forget what it feels like, even though my familiarity with the concept is limited at best. 

Fall quarter of freshman year was such a colossal mess that it's no wonder these sporadic, effervescent memories my friends sometimes like to share were times in which I wasn't there. I was with him, or at home, but never on campus, and perhaps that is reason enough to quash this entire entry. 

My experiences are limited enough.

"See, I want that!" Barrett exclaimed last Sunday night during his post-graduation shindig. Barrett recalled spending time at a friend's house and having two other people randomly stop by to invite them to hang out. "I want that!" he said, I couldn't have agreed more. Living alone has only made that fact more of a realization. The solitude invites longing for those "true" college experiences that you just don't get when you refuse to take a cab because you're broke and have to wait for the train. We're not just walking across campus. We're wandering around neighborhoods and I have to wonder whether or not it's the distance or the apathy that makes our relationships so strange and obtuse and false.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran into Ryan and Alex in the quad after my Peer Education and Theory class.

"Hey!" they proclaimed as I joined them.

"Hey!" I said.

"So what's up?" Ryan asked.

"Nothing much, just getting out of a class. You?"

"Oh, we have to print something out for class."

"Ahhh," a long pause, "You know, this is the first time that I've talked to you guys without a drink in me."

It was an embarrassing truth, but a truth nonetheless, one that we could laugh about and one that also reminded me of the falsity of many of my relationships in the city. Bonding over a good glass of wine, a great song, a favorite outfit, but all under the context of a planned get together, an organized event, and not because our sporadic nature made us jump across the hall to say "hello".

That night, Lourdes gave me a long and sloppy hug as she expressed her grievances with the situation. And then she sauntered away and a really good song came on, and I bounced my way over to the booth where I ran into that friend that made me want to run away from the city I've called home for twenty years.

We caught up and Christy spilled her own grievances about the University of Chicago.

"It's so good to get out, you know? The campus can be so confining," she said.

I shook my head in agreement.

So confining, yes, but somewhere to call home.

So confining, yes, but somewhere a little more true. 

In case you missed it...

Cut Copy @ the Abbey Pub 

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Pop culture musings, independent music, film, and fashion with a dash of feminism.

Britticisms: I am hipster so you don't have to be.

It's 3AM and I'm over it.

It began earlier in the night, midnight ti be precise (the time in which I venture out of my cave and purchase vodka tonics).

I took a ridiculously expensive cab to a club downtown where the doorman didn't care that I had a terrible fake id so much as he cared about the length of my dress, which was short, and the height of my heels, which were high. It was the sort of place where guys who own more hair products than girls sport faux-haws and trashy, pseudo hookers wear scraps of fabric that, unfortunately, let their fish lips out greet the entire room.

BUT.

It was my best friend's birthday.

So, I didn't really care.

And there she was, Christy, a best friend from junior high and high school who I hadn't spoken to in three years. It's amazing how easy it is to slip back into "Girrrrl", "Nuh-uh", and "Shit, are you for real?" when you are around the right person. 

"I didn't want to leave," Christy said about her time in Paris.

Other things that she said:
That they "love us" over there
That race is less of an issue than in the U.S.
That men are forward in their feelings (and in my mind, won't call you a slut *ahem* for wanting affection)
That she felt like she could be herself

"I think every female owes it to herself to go!" she exclaimed and I thought about my false starts abroad and how I've grown to resent the city for which I'm born and bred.

And so I'm done with it.

I loathe it all.

I hate the hyper-segregation that people pretends doesn't exist. I hate white girls calling me ugly and black girls calling me an "oreo". I hate black guys calling me a traitor and white guys calling me fat. I hate the hipster scene. I hate the club head scene. I hate the bro scene. I hate racist frat boys from the Midwest. I hate pretentious art students from the suburbs. I hate the winter. I hate the racism. I hate feeling like shit because I'm treated like shit. I hate that we act like we are truly a second city. I hate the lack of culture, of fashion, of creativity. I hate the entitled drivers and the reckless bikers. I hate the CTA. I hate the gentrification and displacement and racial hierarchies. I hate the pet owners who won't clean up their dogs shit and the Lincoln Park old money. I hate the Cubs. I hate the Sox. I hate the rivalry. I hate the North Side and the South Side and the fact that people completely omit the West Side and pretend like the rivalry is not about race...when it is. I hate people staring at me. I hate feeling like an outsider. I hate people not knowing where I'm coming from or what I'm feeling. I hate dumb questions about my hair or my skin or idiotic assumptions about my background. I hate that we pretend and ignore and act immature, childish and naive. I hate it all and I hate that it affects me so, makes me resentful. I hate that I can't be myself, that I don't know myself and that, the longer I stay here, the more that will be true.

I will also be interning here over the summer.

Obviously, I'm extremely excited.

The interview was pretty quick, surprisingly so. But I was a little surprised by the questionnaire. I think that in school, we are trained to act a certain way, to say particular things, to present ourselves in such a manner as to make the person interviewing us view us as desirable.

But then I just sort of forget all of that when I get into these "less than traditional" areas of work.

For my new job, Julia, the owner of Public I finished the interview with, "What are some of your favorite designers?"

And I actually jumped up in glee in my seat.

Yes, I know.

Here's the thing: Yes, we all have certain things that we love. We have our personal interests, our desires, our favorites, but we often have to suppress those desires in order to conform to what society expects of us. I've discussed this more in detail when facing homophobia as someone disgusted by it, but not as directly hurt as my gay and lesbian friends. In terms of jobs, DePaul, like most modern universities now, are preparing college students not for the "questions of life" that we hope to pursue throughout our continuing years, but rather on how to get a job, how to prep the resume, how to write the right cover letter. We have fashion shows that focus on business attire. I've never been. I don't plan on attending one. I think I might have to jump out the window if my life resorts to that (especially since I went through all of this in a little program called INROADS).

That's why, in interviews, it always catches me off guard, even if it somewhat applies to the job that I'm interested in, when the interviewer asks something that I can connect to on a very personal level.

Favorite designers?

Ah, yes!

Well, Comme de Garcons, of course! And what would life be like without Dries van Noten and Helmut Lang? And I would feel imcomplete without a little Ann Demuelemeester. And let's not forget Yigal Azrouel and Phillip Lim and Rag & Bone.

I might have spoken just like that. I'm not quite sure. But it's VERY possible.

The same goes for my new internship. When asked, among other things, my most memorable concert (I gave a three-tiered answer: my first concert (Michael Jackson), my first concert in which I paid for the tickets, and my most memorable recent show), and my top 5 favorite albums (not going to list them all here, but the list does include Joy Division, obviously, as well as Talking Heads, Blonde Redhead, The Clash, and Michael Jackson).

To the original point though, our personal interests, our favorites, our tastes: it's really enthralling to be in any surrounding in which that is not only okay but the norm. 

Got a new job.

Will be working here.

I am now officially a shopgirl.

It's retail, but not retail like Nordstrom or Marshall Field's, which is less like retail, and more like hell. 

More importantly though, I'm finally getting my shit together. 

people have such a strong desire to socially conform, that they will say and do whatever it takes to revert their own suppressed desires into the most mainstream, wholesome and normal ideals.

See:

closeted Republican congressman vetoing gay marriage amendments

Also:

closeted Midwestern frat boys shouting homophobic garbage while walking down the street

---

The whole point of a costume party is, it seems, to escape from the doldrums of everyday life. You get to experiment with your tastes, or lack thereof. But, and one can't forget this, it's not supposed to be real. It's fiction, it's false. It is something entirely not you.

Except, I really love costume parties.

And I really love costumes.

And I suppose that where I am now, a twenty year old college student a year away from graduation, I'd to rest assured knowing my final moments as "youthful" and "carefree" are spent dressing and dressing up the way that I want to.

The thing is, we're in college, or we're in the city, or we're adults.

And yet, people are so inherently threatened by ANYTHING that does not conform.

An important note here, when people think of conformity, they think that it only applies to the mainstream. To conform, to them, is to wear the khaki pants, to wear the polo shirts, and everything else is unconformity. However, and especially in a city like Chicago, what it means to "unconform" is about as standard of conformity as one can get. Yes, you are a hipster, which is not necessarily mainstream, but no, you're not the only one. You have studied the hipster lifestyle and can perfect the look of "non-mainstream" so acutely, that I would warrant your need to express yourself is just a need to conform, albeit to a faction of society that is on the outskirts (but certainly NOT at the rate that it once was ten years ago, or five years ago, or even last summer).

Last night, I spent most of the evening running around the city with my friend Will. The goal was to make it to Rogers Park to attend a party that Barrett and some of his friends from Loyola were throwing. However, we were severely interrupted by a number of random distractions like missing wallets and train delays. More importantly, however, the party was themed, one in which every guest had to arrive wearing at least 3 pieces of clothing in the same color, with a made up name to be associated with that color and a murder weapon (in the style of Clue) that corresponded as well.

For me, the obvious choice began with a silver sequined dress I purchased for my birthday last year, never wore, and only occasionally take out of the closet for an interesting evening. The outfit also consisted of silver lame leggings, and a silver headband, and silver jazz shoes, and silver gloves. Yes, it was a lot of silver.

That was precisely the point.

For the majority of the night, I could fend off snide remarks, snickers, and slightly sarcastic questions. While waiting to get off at the Loyola stop:

"That's a lot of silver," a young sassy Black man said to me as his friend, in scrubs, sat in another seat, snickering.

"That's right, baby," I replied. My night already began with a first drink to fend off what would be the comments I knew would arise.

"So why you wearing so much silver?"

"Costume party."

"What kinda costume party is that?"

"You have to wear all one color, and I chose silver."

"I can see."

"Mmmhmm." 

"Is it a sex party?"

"I'd be wearing black, not silver hun."

And then the doors opened.

Later in the night, once we were back in Lincoln Park, after we got lost in Rogers Park, after running away from the cops, after dancing to Little Boots and Kylie, after talking about why Barack is our last hope and why John McCain is the final nail in the December 12, 2012 coffin, another confrontation.

"That's a lot of silver!" a drunk frat boy shouted from his balcony. His friends were laughing, but intrigued. They were exactly the kind of older drunken frat guys I hate: the ones that like to pretend that they're still in college, the ones who STILL haven't settled down and don't realize it's because they're ugly, and fat and foul, the ones who are investment bankers and want everyone to know it, the ones who overcompensate miniscule penises with oversized cars that nearly knock me over on the sidewalk, the ones who like to put me in their "spank bank", the ones who are gross, and stupid, and Republican and racist, and misogynist and a disgrace to the kind people in Lincoln Park and men in general.

You know what I'm talking about.

"That's right!" I shouted back.

"Why don't you take off those silver pants, and that dress, and come up here!"

"You wish, honey!"

"You think I want you,  you fat bitch?" (Sidenote: I'm not trying to make generalizations, but the guys who always call women fat, or at least, always call me fat, are white. Always. I've never had a black man or Hispanic man or East Asian man or Southeast Asian man or West Asian man say that to me, ever. When examining the unhealthy beauty standards of modern society, it seems to be a two-way process of mainstream media, usually dominated by Western European and European descendant males, and the unknowing men who undoubtedly accept these unrealistic ideals, because, as absurd as they might be, usually reflect a facet of society we deem the "majority", and apply them to every woman they meet, regardless of age or race. It's a terrible cycle that crushes the self-esteem of impressionable young women, especially if you are, in my case, a woman who dates men of all races, a woman who's last two relationships were with white men, and a woman who, because of her tastes in music and clothing and WHATEVER, is almost exclusively around people unlike herself.)

"I'm sorry. I don't speak dumb ass."

"You're probably a dude, anyway."

"And?"

"You fucking faggot!"

"It must really suck to be so be so closeted, doesn't it?"

"I'm not gay!"

"Well, if I'm not a girl, then weren't you just attracted to a guy?"

"You fucking bitch!"

And then I said some other things, probably about his beer belly and ragged face, since I like to shoot for the most obvious of details when looking for insults in the heat of confrontation, and we walked away.

"Oh, wow, I'm sorry about that," Will said.

"Sorry? What's there to be sorry about?" I replied. 

Alyson Fox of A Small Collection is not just a designer in the eco-conscious fashion scene, she is one of the emerging innovators. While other designers merely work with organic fabrics, Fox takes environmental consciousness to a whole other level. Besides the extensive use of hemp, organic cotton, and linen, Fox also incorporates fallen tree branches fashioned into buttons and eliminates zippers from her collections. “By deciding to go as green as possible it made a lot of possibilities not an option. I had to get more creative with how to wear the garment,” the Portland-based designer says. Indeed, her limited collection of a-line shift and dropped waist shift dresses, and mix and match separates are structurally unique and effortlessly chic.

Read the rest here 

He said that I hurt him and I laughed.

I laughed because I thought it wasn't true.

And then, I laughed because the idea seemed absurd.

Because I am young, because I am female, because I am human, my confidence falters.

Because I have been hurt in the past, I wonder if my actions and phone calls and e-mails, with so much intuition and cognizance of the moment, were a deliberate attempt to wrong like I have been wronged in the past.

I remember freshman year when I wore a white sleeveless turtleneck and felt foolish so covered up as the temperature outside was still pleasant. I remember wanting the him at the time to touch me and not wanting him, or anyone for that matter, to touch me as I had trouble even looking at myself in the mirror. Two weeks after I cried into the phone and punched the wall and did a lot of other things that would perhaps permanently damage, I crawled into the bed and onto his lap. I pulled the second fold of the turtleneck up on my face and closed my eyes. He slapped my thigh and said,

"You're a real woman."

I thought about his ex-girlfriend, petite, and enthusiastic and full of joie de vive and I thought about myself and how, moments before, the only thing I could think about was my weight, my curves and angle, and if they were too much - more than enough.

I got down from the twin-sized bed and left in a hurry with a million different excuses, unsure of how he saw me and well aware of how I saw myself, my breasts, and ass.

And then, I remember a month ago, and how I wore the black dress with THE neckline and how he stared. It was obvious and he didn't stop, confident I think. I stopped talking and he looked up, five seconds later.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," I replied.

When I hugged goodbye, I lingered, even though I felt nothing.

My friends told me to get it another chance, and I did, even though I knew how it would end and that my game was in turns dangerous and dirty.

"I like you," he said.

"I know," I replied.

He sighed. "But I don't like who I am when I'm around you."

"Really? Why?"

"I don't know who I am, and I feel bad about myself, and dumb. Really dumb."

"I'm sorry I made you feel so insecure."

"Are you?"

I paused. "I don't know."

Because I have control of these words, I can remove certain incriminating details that would otherwise make sense. It's all in context.

BUT.

An end is such that things are no longer active, and therefore should not be discussed, regardless of the forum. What happened in between is inconsequential.

He said, "I don't know what to do anymore," and I didn't say anything. He put it all out there, and I cowered.

At the time, I thought, here is your power. Here is your confidence.

I found a photo of myself on one of those nightlife sites taken the day before. My face is bloated, eyes scrunched with limbs not gangly by ugly and stump-like and obtuse. I tried to smile into the camera but a picture is worth a thousand words and my expression, pained and pathetic would not, could not lie.

Here I am.