She Called Me Sir...

"Excuse me, sir?" she asked, as I held open the door to the Mobil Station for her and her brother, a Rockstar energy drink in one hand and a Dean's Chocolate Milk in the other. "Excuse me sir, are we in Iowa or Illinoise?" What immediately struck me--as her uneducated-sounding accent hit the end of Illinois so it sounded less like a state and more like a phat beat--was the odd placement of the question. I mean, here we were, not more than 15 miles from the Illinois/Wisconsin border on I-90 (an interstate that doesn't even go through Iowa) and she's asking me if she's in Iowa?

After responding, "Illinois," letting her and her younger brother walk past me into the station, the word hit me: "Sir" she called me. Was it the chocolate milk I was holding? Or the energy drink? Couldn't possibly be it. Was it my clothes? I was wearing shorts and a black polo, but that's certainly not something you see older gentlemen wearing to the country club (or is it?). Or was it her polite way of saying, "How did it feel to start losing your hair at 16?"; "How does it feel to be out of touch with the younger generation's music, language, and affinity for texting?"; "How did people listen to music before the iPod? With, like, rocks and stuff?"

Granted it wasn't the first time anyone had ever called me sir, but usually it is said by a peer in jest, or someone checking me into a hotel, or taking large amounts of my money electronically via credit. Something about this 15 year-old girl's sign of respect hit me too hard that day. Sir.

Glass half full: It IS a sign of respect, something I've long coveted and oft got. And it's not as if I'm a woman. What DO you call a woman to not disrespect her? "Ma'am" and "Madam" are out because they make a woman feel too old. "Miss" carries the complete opposite problem. "Mrs." is tricky because you never know whether the woman is married or not. "Ms." I find too hard to say and generally avoid for that reason. "Ms."... the 'z' hits the back of my teeth hard, closing my mouth and the flow of words from it.

Certainly no word is as clean, universal, and respectful as "Mister" or "Sir"... both easy to say and "sir" makes me feel a little like a knight, now that I think about it. So what IS the proper word to use with a woman? How did I get here? What does this have to do with me? I'm not sure. But it's good to know that, no matter how old I get, I'll still have useless yet thought provoking questions to ask in such a way as to receive no definitive answers ever and I'll end up saying a phrase my dad used to say when I'm older and have kids: "You know, when I die, I hope all of this will be explained to me."

Perpetual First Day of School

In a way, we can learn a lot about ourselves by remembering our first day of school. This day is important because whatever our feelings are on that day, they keep coming up throughout our lives: first day of college, moving to a new city, first day at a new job, etc. And how we handle that day may very well dictate how we deal with all these other days.

Case in point, I've been cast in a show going up at the Chicago Theatre Building at the end of April. This week (Monday) was the first day of the rehearsal process. Granted, on the way to that rehearsal I had other things on my mind (Where am I going? How am I going to get there in time? Why won't this bus go f--king faster??!) plus I had to practically jog, haphazardly, on snow and ice for two city blocks to make it there on time (I was there at 6:58 for a 7 o'clock start time).

So that day doesn't really illustrate my point very well. However, I knew the first night was going to be filled with contracts and a read-through of the script. If there's one thing I've ALWAYS been good at, it's reading a script out loud. As such, I wasn't really worried the first night. It was the second night, Tuesday, that I started having all my thoughts and fears and reservations about my performance and me personally. And it didn't take long before I realized that they're basically the same questions I had when I was younger:
What if the other kids don't like me?
What if it's too hard? And I'm not smart enough?
Can I still get out of it? How?
What if I don't belong?
What if everyone knows everyone else and I'm the only one who doesn't know anybody? (Which was quasi-true because the two people I knew weren't there Tuesday... and everyone else is an ensemble member)

But, fortunately for me, most of those questions are answered the way you would hope. The group is steadily coming together (important since we're all supposed to be good friends in the show), and I'm slowly proving to myself and others that I not only belong, but can far exceed even my own expectations (maybe).

I just found it so odd to be 26 and asking myself "What if the other kids don't like me?" as if I was 5 or 6 again. I didn't ask it exactly like that, but the main question I asked myself basically breaks down into that--as it's simplest form. It is my sincere hope that some day I'll be in a place where I can answer that question with an answer somewhere in between "Of course they will" and "It doesn't matter if they do or not." That would be a healthy, positive place. Lord knows I can use more of those.

The Fire

Tonight, Chelsey and I walked to the local Chipotle. As we were getting ready to leave, we heard at least half of a dozen emergency vehicles (a far too common sound in the city, I'm afraid). I made some off-hand comment about how close the location of the emergency probably was.
As we left the building, we noticed a few people on the corner looking up at a high-rise building a block away. When I looked up, I saw a fire had burst open windows on the seventh or eight floor of the building. The fire was lapping at the window above it, yet seemed fairly contained to the one, corner apartment. My initial reaction was to go try to help... I'm not sure how I would help, but that was my first thought. "Someone's in trouble," I told myself, "I should help." Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending) there was a cop directing traffic (including foot traffic) away from the road leading up to the building. There were also two more fire trucks and a few more cop cars down the road, on their way. There was nothing I could do, but I certainly wasn't about to stand there and watch like the people on the corner. As we turned the corner, we approached a bus stop. Since it's naturally a place where people stand, I wouldn't have normally thought anything of the literal crowd waiting at the stop. However, tonight it seemed the crowd was all looking up: looking at the fire. That's when I started to get angry. I understand human curiosity... but this is someone's home! You're standing and watching someone's whole life burn as if it was the Friday night movie. And it relit my fire of hatred for the city--any city. Not that people wouldn't stand and watch in a small town (because they would), but simply because standing and watching is something that humans do and there are SO MANY of them in the city.
Also... it felt really good to be passionate enough about something to get my blood pressure up and really get mad. Moron that later. Happy 2007, InterWeb audience.