Ode to the Sycamore

Normally, the bare and dormant trees that dot the landscape this time of year are depressing to me. Although it's technically spring, it will be a few more weeks before we start to see more than a few timid signs of plant life up here in Chicago. The brave little crocuses that bloomed last week are now smothered by a blanket of wet, heavy, and unwelcome snowfall. The buds that tentatively started to form on some bushes and shrubs have shriveled up and are falling off, thanks to the late-season freeze; even the hedges are back to square one. Aside from the evergreens, there is one type of tree at cheers me up during these cold, dreary months; the American Sycamore.

Distinctive even in winter, the mottled, paint-by-number bark of these majestic shade trees stands out in almost defiant contrast to the hibernating maples, oaks, and elms. Caused by an inability to expand as the tree grows, the bark cracks and separates before it eventually sloughs off, revealing layered shades of browns, tans, yellows, whites, ecrus, and even pale greens. Rivaled only by the flaky white trunks of the delicate birch, the sycamore is one of those rare trees that commands attention and admiration year round. While the leaves of the sycamore aren't as pretty as maple leaves in the fall or as recognizable as the leaves on most varieties of oak trees, they are distinctive because of their size. On a mature sycamore, the broad, flat leaves can grow to be as big as a human head!

So until the weather turns for good, the flowers are in full bloom and the trees have regained their complete summer foliage, I will continue to rely on the many shades and textures of bark that make up the sycamore's earthy palette to provide some cheery color to an otherwise gray, late-winter landscape.

Disclaimer Dates

I've been in a bit of a dating "dry spell "as of late, which seems to make some people uncomfortable, or at least it bothers them more than it does me. I've been busy with other things, and ever since I came to the conclusion that I'm no longer willing to suffer through dates with guys who don't really interest me, I haven't actively given dating much thought. However, this hasn't stopped some well-intentioned friends and acquaintances from offering to introduce me to a still-single guy friend or relative of theirs, the numbers of whom seem to be dwindling by the day. While normally this wouldn't bug me, I've begun to notice a trend in their approach, one that disturbs me quite a bit.

The suggestion starts innocently enough-- they want to introduce me to their co-worker/husband's friend/brother-in-law who is both attractive and available. Unfortunately, the next sentence that comes out of their mouth is some variation of, "He's such a great guy, but... " It's the word "but" that makes me cut them off-- guys shouldn't come with warning labels! And besides, the last time I let someone finish that sentence, I very nearly went on a date with a great guy... but, he still lived with his dad-- because he was evading creditors-- and his stunning inability to pass the random drug tests at work had earned him the nickname "Dirty".

Well... sign me up?!? Score.

Other recent date suggestions have included dinner with a guy who forces his dates to pick the wine, just so he can subsequently spend the next three hours mocking their choice (I know next to nothing about wines, so said guy would have had a heyday... at my expense), and a trip to the zoo with a guy named "Buddha"-- as in 'looks like the'-- to see the walruses. I'm not even touching that one!

Seriously, people-- I can do better!

I find it odd that that some of the people who know me best want to set me up with guys who have such glaring, deal-breaking flaws. Then, I had an even more disturbing thought... am I... a disclaimer date?!? I can't think of any reason why I would be, and the friends I've cornered about the matter have insisted that I am not. And although I'd like to think they'd tell me if I was, I'm suddenly not so sure. Are they approaching their single guy friends, saying, "You should really meet my friend Allison! She's such a great gal, but..."

I simply refuse to believe that all the good guys out there have been taken, and I'm just not willing to settle for a disclaimer date. Not at this time. So friends, if you know an eligible guy you'd like me to meet, as long as you can tell me about him without grimacing, I'm all ears! And to the eligible guys, if you don't need a green card, and you have a similar aversion to the thought of disclaimer dating, let's talk. I'd like know more about you, and let you know more about me-- no 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts' about it.

The Break-in

Her worst fears were realized last night; the large males who had been lurking outside her room for weeks finally managed to break in. They burst through the door in the dead of night, ransacked the room, rifled through her belongings, and destroyed her property. Terrified, she cowered under the bed for hours, long after the culprits were apprehended.

Prancy, the tiny calico foster cat, had spent the past three weeks in my bedroom, where she stayed while getting up to date on her vaccinations. She had been quite content to lounge in the windows and on the bed, and was slated to return to the shelter the following morning. In the meantime, my resident cats, Jack and Iggy, were desperate to find out what it was that I was keeping from them. Jack had spent the past few weeks howling and flinging himself against the door. I assumed that he would either be bored or concussed after a few days of these antics, but my refusal to let him in the room only seemed to strenghten his resolve. He HAD TO KNOW what was on the other side of that door!

While I was asleep on the couch, Jack somehow managed to get the door open, and he and Iggy dashed in. Like proverbial bulls in a China shop, they overturned my papasan chair, slid the rug into an accordion-folded pile of fabric in the corner, snagged the duvet cover, and knocked off (and proceeded to chew through) a bag of food and a bag of treats that were up on the dresser. I somehow failed to wake up until they had completely decimated the bag of treats.

Let me hasten to say that no foster cats were harmed during the break-in. In fact, I don't think the boys bothered her at all. They were in it for the treats, which they got. Rest assured that the intruders were quickly apprehended, and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom, despite their howls of protest.

"Call Me Back if He's Dead" (2/15/04)

There was never any noise coming from Mr. Heckles' apartment; no television blaring, no radio playing, no phone ringing, no vacuum cleaner running. Ever. He never even turned any lights on after dark, which is why I immediately knew the alarm going off in his apartment that morning wasn't one that could be turned off by a snooze button. Had he fallen and couldn't get up? Whatever the alarm was for, it had been going off for a while; it sounded as if the batteries were almost out of juice. Even more disturbing was the running water-- a LOT of water-- I heard when I knocked on the door to see if everything was okay. I wasn't expecting an answer, considering he had chased away the nephew who showed up to check on him the week before, but I found the persistent, blaring noise disturbing enough to warrant a call to the police.

A pair of cops sauntered up to the third floor about 1/2 an hour later, joking as they ascended the stairs that there was indeed a strange noise coming from the upstairs apartment. My roommate and I invited them in, explaining that we were worried by the noise and that we wanted them to check on Mr. Heckles because he was old and lived by himself. When they asked us how old we thought he was, we just looked at each other, then back at the cops, chiming "old" in near-perfect unison. The cops shook their heads at us, then knocked on the door and, getting no answer, chastised us for calling them instead of our landlords... I thought an old man might be hurt, and they wanted me to call my landlord!?! Incredible.

So they wandered through our place while we rummaged through our files, raising their eyebrows at the empty wine glasses left over from a dinner party we had hosted the night before. I found our landlord's cell number and reluctantly made the call. I apologized profusely for calling before 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday, then explained that the police were there to check on the old man across the hall, but they didn't seem concerned enough to break in, and instead wanted the landlords to come over and let them in. At this point, the male officer took the phone from me, and once he learned that my landlords were still 20 minutes out, he ordered his partner to stay in the apartment with us while he went out for coffee. He made it clear that we had interrupted their breakfast, and that they weren't even supposed to be responding to our call; their beat was south of Montrose and we lived one block north. As he left our apartment, the officer sarcastically said to his partner, "call me back if he's dead!" His name was Sarge.

The officer who remained seemed quite nervous, saying she didn't have a good feeling about the situation. She then excused herself to take a giant dump in our bathroom. It was awful; we were gagging and our eyes were watering, but we had no discreet way to light a match or a candle, and couldn't very well open the window, because it was FEBRUARY! Thankfully, our landlord showed up a few minutes later, but explained that he couldn't get into the apartment either; apparently Mr. Heckles had been holed up in that third-floor apartment for decades, and that he had come with the building; letting him be was one of the conditions of sale when my landlords purchased the property the year before.

The lonely, eccentric man who lived across the hall was not really named Mr. Heckles, but we called him that because of his eerie resemblance to the disheveled, bath-robed character who lived downstairs from Monica and Rachel on Friends. Turns out he was more paranoid than we realized; we knew the "Beware of Dog" sign and the security alarm sticker on the back door were fake, and quickly learned our landlord's key was insufficient because there were floor-to-ceiling locks on both of his doors. Miraculously, though, the back window was not latched, and the landlord used one of our screwdrivers to jimmy the window open.

Just as he was poised to climb through the open window, the rookie cop sprang into action, saying that, since she was the police officer, she should go first. Before she disappeared into the apartment, she turned to my landlord and asked him to hold her belt, passing him her entire holster, with the gun still inside. My roommate and I stood in our doorway, shivering and gaping at our landlord-- who is a very nice man but, to those who don't know him, could easily pass as an Eastern European mobster-- adorned in hefty gold rings and chains, smoking a cigarette, and holding a gun on our back porch. Something tells me that Sarge would not have approved.

Once they were both inside Mr. Heckles' apartment, we closed the back door, only to hear a knock at our front door a moment later. It was our landlord, ashen but (thankfully) unarmed, and he told us that Mr. Heckles was dead.

The next few hours were a blur of activity; detectives, police, paramedics, and medical examiners descended upon our quiet street corner. Sarge came back and praised us for being good neighbors, telling us we did the right thing by calling 911, and never to hesitate to call the police, because after all, it was their job to serve and protect. Funny, but his words rang a little hollow. Since they couldn't get all the door locks open right away, people were trudging through our apartment to gain entry next door. I was not about to let them carry a dead guy through our place and was fully prepared to tell them as much, but thankfully, they managed to get Mr. Heckles' other door unlocked before it came to that.

Once all the activity was contained to the apartment next door, we were shaken, but thought it best to try and carry out our plans for the day. We had been looking forward to trying a new recipe for sformato, which is a mashed-potato pie. We came up a little short on the onion puree, but figured it wouldn't matter much, and neither of us wanted to run to the store at that moment. It was well past 1:00 p.m. by the time it was finished, and as we sat down to eat, we heard a commotion in the hallway. They were removing the body.

Unfortunately, the recipe proportions were a little more crucial than we realized, and the sformato was a little dense, a little dry. As I tried to masticate that first bite, I had a horrible thought, and one look at my roommate told me she was thinking the same thing-- it was just so... fleshy. We dashed to the garbage can, spit out two wet, colorless lumps of food, and tried not to retch as we dumped the entire dish into the trash. We hid in the kitchen until we heard the detectives leave and the corpse-mobile drive away, then we sprinted out the back door and went out for pizza.

Before the police left, the rookie cop came over to update us on the situation. The death had been ruled "natural", and our landlord had confirmed that Mr. Heckles was a "very sick man"; we suspect he had end-stage cancer of some sort. He was found in the bathroom, naked, as if he was getting ready to take a shower and start his day, which explains the running water I heard. The alarm was not a medic alert, but the smoke detector, which, oddly enough was sitting on the table. Perhaps he needed to change the battery? Perhaps he knew he would need to get our attention?!?

Then she told us that they knew he was alive as of 12:08 the day before, because he kept a little book by the front window and recorded peoples' comings and goings (anyone else see the Friends reference here? "9:42-- Noisy girls across the hall made too much noise again..." Yikes!) and the mail had been delivered at 12:08 on Saturday. It turns out that the mailman was his only friend; he left his most treasured belongings to the mailman in the makeshift will he had scribbled into his notebook. I feel bad that I never got to know Mr. Heckles, but am almost certain that he did not want to be known, that he preferred to keep to himself. Still, I find it sad that the brief, fleeting glimpse we got into the window of his life happened after his death, a view that was abruptly cut off the moment his apartment was sealed, orders of the Cook County Medical Examiner.

Diary of an Instru-mental-case, Part 4

3/16/04
I have some serious ethical problems with this company. A photographer was going to sell us a picture at a discounted rate for use in an upcoming issue until he remembered that he had sent a picture to one of the other magazines in the building nearly five years earlier. He received a written contract and the picture was printed. But when he called several months later because he hadn’t been paid, the Old Guy laughed at him saying that the editor should have never agreed to pay for one lousy picture and that he had no intention of paying any fee. What did he plan to do, fly halfway across the country to sue him for $150?

He almost did sue out of principle, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort. He also thought about calling our regular advertisers to encourage them to take their business elsewhere, but didn’t want to stoop to his level. I thought his description of the Old Guy– a lawyer who thinks he’s above the law– was quite fitting. We apologized profusely on the Old Guy’s behalf but, needless to say, we didn’t get the picture. If this random photographer knows and hates us, how many others feel the same? It’s hard to produce a magazine this way; it makes me wonder if he’s deliberately trying to sabotage the company, cut his losses and retire. I know he’d rather die than relinquish control, but there are better ways to close a company.

3/27/04
My entire body aches. Yesterday we all worked to package, label, and ship the products the magazine sells every spring. The boxes were stacked from floor to ceiling, filling several rooms and hallways. We worked for nearly nine hours straight with only a short break for lunch, lifting and stacking heavy boxes, and lugging completed orders to the shipping area.

I was furious to find out that the Old Guy pockets all the income. He makes millions from these sales, and keeps it all. We have to handle all incoming calls and process, package, and ship each order on a daily basis in addition to all of our regular duties, and we don’t get so much as a penny, let alone a bonus. The money doesn’t go toward updating company technology, bringing employee salaries up to par, or even hiring temp works to cover the deluge of orders; instead it further pads a number of already cushy trust funds and real estate ventures.

I feel like we’re all slaves, and the Old Guy is the seemingly benevolent plantation owner. He tells us to "go forth" and toil in the field and– we’ll never see the fruits of our labors but the onslaught of riches leaves him feeling generous enough to spring for pizza. I am convinced that he is partially responsible for the nation’s economy troubles. I would like to see a bill passed to cap company profits and raise the standard wages of the employees who make it all happen, but since the politicians are in on this scheme as well, the working class will remain forever oppressed.

4/6/04
I got a postcard from one of the contributing editors congratulating me on my first published article. Her compliments were so genuine and unexpected that I stood there, card in hand, for several minutes. Even though I don’t believe a word the Old Guy says, I guess being told that I’m wrong, stupid, and lazy has affected me more than I realized. The first nice thing to be said about my work came from a relative stranger–I wanted to cry.

I took the postcard home with me and hung it on the fridge. That little card was what made me realize that the constant negativity has made me meaner and more cynical. I don’t really like the person I’ve become, so when I picked up a paper on my way to work this morning, I turned straight to the classifieds and set out to make things right.

Diary of an Instru-mental-case, Part 3

12/11/03
On a whim, I wrote a short article about my daily two-hour, 24-mile-commute, taking great care to write within the stringent limitations of our house style. We were told to start soliciting more one-page columns on lighter subjects, and I thought this would fit the bill. I was thrilled to receive a back-handed compliment from the Old Guy– I couldn’t believe he liked it!

I don’t know why I was expecting him to edit my article more lightly than the others, but I was dismayed to get draft after draft back with corrections scribbled between each line. It was good, but he can write about my life better than I ever could. I read over the final edit to make sure my ideas were still intact, but I couldn’t bear to point out that I never used the words"render" or "misgivings" in casual conversation for fear the article would be changed again. I now refer to it as "Allison’s Commute, by the Old Guy."

12/19/03
I worked the company booth at an international music conference this week. I met several authors and contributing editors and attended some lectures in hopes of soliciting an article or two. The annual meeting of the Old Man’s Club also convenes at this conference; I’ve never seen the Old Guy in such good spirits– he was schmoozing and name-dropping with the best of them!

The company is predominately female (because the Old Guy feels less threatened by women), but on more than one occasion, an author walked up, shook hands with my male co-workers, then asked if I answered phones– it was infuriating. Upon learning I was one of the editors, a particularly sexist author sneered and asked if I even had a music degree– I retorted that I had three. It was the most gratifying thing I had done all week.

1/2/04
I laughed aloud as I read the two memos on my desk this morning. The first one read "Please turn the enclosed digital image into a 35-mm slide." Smirking, I imagined how the memo must sound to its recipients– "Please reverse technology so we can make production more laborious and time-consuming." The second said: "We will discontinue any reference to the internet as a proper noun. We do no such thing with a copy machine or an automobile or a telephone" and ended with "Jargon in all forms should be suspect." I’ll tell you what’s suspect– people who classify the Internet as a tangible object, and trade-specific magazines that print only jargon-free articles.

1/5/04
We lost three employees last week. One girl had actually been fired a couple of months earlier, but continued working until she found another job because the Old Guy refused to pay unemployment. Another walked out, and the third was fired for taking an approved vacation day.

One of our editors moved to advertising, and we’re now short handed across the board with production week looming. The tension in this place is almost unbearable; it’s hard to work for someone so emotionally volatile. I’m just trying to stay under the radar to prevent triggering any additional outbursts.

1/22/04
Sighing, I re-edited my latest assignment, changing several sentences into passive voice because I had started each with the "wrong" subject. Then I had to look over the old guy’s shoulder as he reworked the first page. He read my version aloud in that robotic monotone I’ve grown to loathe; his corrections were recited with a melodious lilt. I refrained from pointing out that everything sounds ridiculous in that voice; only on a good day am I able to interject a sentence or two before being shut down by his lawyerish doublespeak.

Aside from the nautical theme and the lack of a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, his office is no different from an interrogation room. Every conversation is a hostile cross-examination; my ideas are squelched before they’re even voiced and the only acceptable answers I’m allowed to give are yes and no. I often wonder how miserable people have to be to feel empowered by belittling others. Sadly, I think the Old Guy feels entitled to do so. Well, I don’t care who his daddy was or how much money he has, nothing gives him the right to treat others so poorly. But until I can find another source of income, I have little choice but to submit to the verbal abuse.

Diary of an Instru-mental-case, part 2

10/22/03
I witnessed "soup time"today. English lessons begin early for this fourth generation of future writers over a bowl of alphabet soup, the leftovers of which are stored in the fridge still in the open can and covered only by a thin film of congealed broth.

The youngest grandchild is very articulate, but more interested in eating the slimy lettered noodles than learning pretentious words that start with the letter of the day. The letter today was O. The word of the day– obstreperous. I would rather potty train kids that age than try to expand their vocabulary before they can pronounce all the phonemes in the English language.

11/12/03
The Old Guy has been making me work late for no apparent reason. I have no problem putting in extra time if necessary, but enlarging photographs for another magazine doesn’t count. Another time I had to read the first chapter of "The Birth of the Republic" by Edmund P. Morgan before I could leave, but mostly I just have to sit and listen to stories about how stupid the French are or how a former president took a crap in some rose garden.

I put in my full eight hours and sometimes more– how dare he make me feel guilty for not staying late or coming in early? I have other interests, such as music. By the time I get home and fix dinner, I am so mentally drained that it’s hard to make myself practice, and when I get home late, it’s even harder.

11/18/03
The Old Guy canned the article I was working on and gave me a short piece by a member of the Old Man’s Club instead. The Club is filled with cantankerous loyalists who think very highly of themselves and continue to regard each other as the only distinguished leaders in the field long after their glory days have passed. I suspect that this author is, sadly, in the final stages of alcoholism– he spelled "flexibility" with two semicolons and a fraction!

I looked through musty back issues to find three articles the author had published in the 1960s and 70s, which were nearly identical to the mess he sent in this time. I was able to piece together enough coherent ideas to create a fourth edition, but the Old Guy insisted I call to clarify some "vagueries", which proved useless. All I learned was that the author was Irish and he thought I was "terrific".

We later compiled a list of his made-up words (which was nearly as long as the one I made during the President’s most recent State of the Union address) and tried to use each in a sentence– it was mildly entertaining.

11/27/03
I came in early yesterday because I was leaving town for the holiday, despite the memo that denounced both Thanksgiving and Christmas for falling near the end of the production cycle. The Old Guy gave me an article to re-edit right before I left because I had the nerve to take Friday off and spend the weekend with my family. Had I gotten the article back earlier in the afternoon, I could have easily finished it before I was scheduled to leave, but my protests fell on deaf ears.

By the time I finished, nearly everyone else was gone. My eyes brimmed with tears as I sat in city traffic for nearly two hours; I had no cash for dinner. I was so tired and hungry by the time I finally got home that I wanted to quit. I just don’t understand how someone can be so heartless and cruel.