It’s all over now, baby blue September 4, 2008

I often joke that Baltimore is like that casual drug-using, verbally abusive boyfriend you can’t quite get rid of. You know it’s fatally flawed, but once you get close to it, you start making excuses and saying things like “It’ll change” and “if we can just get rid of the instigators, the problem will be solved.” But it never changes. It only gets close and breaks your heart when you realize it’s not getting any better.

Even though it never quite gets right, though– even though peg-arm, peg-leg guy has been begging for change on the corner of President and Pratt for years and will continue to do so, probably, until he expires– you still love it. Or at least I do. I know Baltimore’s not for everyone. Hell, when I started college at UMBC, I was pretty certain Baltimore wasn’t for me.

First of all, I was a farm girl. I’d never lived closer than twenty miles to the nearest Wal-Mart (which was, incidentally, the premier shopping destination). Five years ago– five short, sweet years ago– I had never heard of BCBG, thought I was chic in Pumas and ripped jeans, and saw a beauty in swimming holes that even now seems faded in comparison to my memories. Secondly, after my love of rural life, I was a DC lover. I saw that DC was bigger, more internationally recognized, offered better municipal services, and had more free attractions than Baltimore. It was a cultural center. The Philadelphia to our region’s Pittsburgh. Maybe even the New York to the region’s Allentown.

But once I was enrolled at UMBC, I started to explore Baltimore. The college fraternities would charter these buses downtown, and for a few dollars they would drop you off at 10 p.m. and take you back to campus at 2a.m.– essentially, they were designated drivers. My friend Carolyn and I would take the drunk bus down to Fells Point on Thursday nights, getting served alcohol at a ridiculously young age. We’d stroll the walkways along the water, picturesque but rancid with the smell of restaurant Dumpsters and rotten Inner Harbor backwash… party with the college set and narrowly avoid citations for underage drinking, or worse… shoot pool at a downtown hall with unimaginably high rates, each honing our skills while honing our game. And somewhere in there, I started falling for Baltimore.

Out of nowhere, I was charmed by Charm City. Everything was so fun, and comfortable– the homey feeling that all the neighborhoods offer, thanks to the fact that Baltimore isn’t a cohesive city. It’s a collection of neighborhoods. Fells Point was a different experience from Canton, which was different from Washington Village, worlds away from Mount Washington though they shared a name. The Inner Harbor quickly became passe, and I think I was even legal before I ever bothered with Federal Hill. I loved every nook and cranny I found, from yardsales up on Erdman Avenue on Sunday mornings before pool league, to self-aware ritzy dining at Pazo and the newly created HarborEast.

The summer between junior and senior year in college, I didn’t bother going home. I just stayed in Baltimore. I didn’t have a car, or a job lined up, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter– I walked to Belvedere Square, learned North Baltimore’s unintuitive roadways like the back of my hand, and picked parts for my old Jeep from Crazy Ray’s. I used to cruise that beater up and down York Road, into downtown, and across Caton Avenue and the eff-it-it’s-Wilkens Avenue that meanders into Catonsville to my best friend’s house. I had gone from convinced that my hometown was my first love to wondering whether I’d love anyplace more than Baltimore. I loved tree-lined Lake Avenue, from “the 83″ all the way to its casual terminus at our street. I loved driving into Charles Village past Loyola, only to discover there is nothing remotely interesting in Charles Village except Video Americaine and the Paper Moon Diner.

The city definitely left an indelible smudge on me. It’s gritty, and at its best hearkens back to that John Waters time, that Oriole Park opening night time, that Johnny Unitas time. A nostalgia that you revel in, even as it reveals that you’re in a solidly middle-class town with good values and gentrification and cute touristy boutiques. At the end of that summer– even though I didn’t make a particularly good living, or do much of anything besides bounce around between working for and dining at my favorite Baltimore restaurants– it only seemed natural to move off-campus and find an apartment.

I really lucked out with this apartment. I viewed several, but in this one I found a location close to UMBC, the pre-Industrial Revolution charm I’d so loved in the house I was raised in, and plenty of space to spread out and plant some roots. I came in with the trunk my great-grandmother used to ferry up and down the Chesapeake on trips to vacation on the island; everything else I used to furnish the place, I gradually accumulated from yardsales and Craigslist. (Craigslist is the other love I’ve acquired during my time here, but that’s another story for another post.)

It’s not the jobs I had here that I remember, or even the textbook education I received. Partying with Jami in ways that make me look back with equal parts cringe and fondness, I remember. Taking absolutely reckless risks and realizing that I was flying completely solo without a safety net, I remember. Being too proud to ask my mom for money, but too desperate not to, is burned into my memory as well. Remember me making so little money freelancing, I almost moved into the Copycat to lower my rent– before my mom and grandmother put me on a guilt trip about how my grandfather would lie awake in his grave, worrying? Remember going to every Catholic church in Baltimore, only to realize that I am Catholic in ethnicity but not in faith? Remember finding solace at Charm City Yoga, but not to the tune of $140 a month? I remember getting locked out of my work and going instead to the house where American Psycho could have been filmed. I remember Karate Explosion. I remember Lauren Tonikola, and Marcus Gross, and dancing to Sly & the Family Stone with the windows open, unnecessarily loud, at all hours. I remember creating extraordinarily elaborate costumes for Halloween in Fells Point. Doing the YMCA on the bar in our Village People costumes. Making oversize pots of stew and sharing containers of it with Homeless Dave, who keeps going back to jail to get a warm bed, and finally getting what Marc Steiner was complaining about.

I have older memories, too, of being here, like driving through the old Druid Hill Park neighborhood and knowing that, when it was in its glory and houses dotted the lake, my grandfather lived here. I have his memory drifting in and out of different parts of the city, stories he told me, the knowledge that a distant cousin of his still lives here. I have my first great love, and my first baffling heartbreak. And second. And third. I have me realizing that heartbreak isn’t that baffling, or that breaking. I have endless memories of rock concerts, sailing the Chesapeake after way too many beers and entirely too late after any reasonable bedtime, discovering that I… love… textiles and clothes, the feeling of the ground moving out from under me and fundamentally shifting when I finished reading Lolita, and the shock of innumerable other discoveries I’ve made over the course of my time living in Baltimore.

Somewhere along the way, I became a city girl. I don’t know when, or how in the hell, it happened… but I became a traffic-ignoring, mace-carrying, side-street-navigating city girl whose only MO was to explore, instead of to hide. Baltimore’s changed me, and the lessons of it (some of which I’m still realizing) will stay with me for years to come. Living in the DC suburbs is going to be different, that’s for sure. But I’ll still drive up and see my old City by the Bay. And visiting Baltimore will be a real pleasure, a bite to savor after a long drive to pound familiar streets. It’ll be like going home. And maybe even meeting up with your now-ex-boyfriend for coffee– you know which one. The one who never quite got it together, but for whom you will always have an impossible degree of fondness.

I knew it wasn’t just me!! April 3, 2008

Apparently, a good man really is hard to find… especially if you live on the east coast. Of course, I didn’t need a map to tell you that the a single lady’s pickings in Baltimore are mighty slim… still, it’s an interesting map. I wonder– do they factor in sexual orientation or same-sex partnerships? The map depicts Miami as overloaded with single women… perhaps the town’s legendary gay nightlife isn’t comprised of permanent residents? Coastal California, on the other hand, is stacked with single guys.

Actually, this is just one of many spiffy maps available on Richard Florida’s site (he’s the author responsible for Rise of the Creative Class). The other maps plot concentrations of neurotic people (helpful when you’re dating or making friends), as well as standbys like economic fortitude or household income. Florida’s book details the rise of that other new economy (besides the new “green collar” everyone’s raving about): Creative folks. Freelancers, craftspersons, organic rooftop farmers, and the like.

Now, where’s that creative class living? Allegedly, all over that same area that’s smeared with single ladies– including Baltimore. So why is it so very, very hard to find jobs in creative fields? Just because we live here doesn’t mean we’re employed. Perhaps Florida could do a map of career opportunities.

In other weird maps, there is a sweet episode of TAL where Ira interviews, among others, a man who is making a smell map. I’m not kidding.

Maps are pretty cool. Seriously. I could never fold the one in the glovebox, but I’ve got Google on lock. Thank God for GPS.

Comprehending duty August 16, 2007

In college, I lived with a girl whose parents were Indian immigrants. My roommate was the most modern, typical American you could ever want to meet, but underneath our trips to Banana Republic and movies and smoothies, there was a distinction between us. When we talked about dating, or career choices, or any other major life decisions, she frequently referenced what her parents would think if they found out. Often, her answer was “I can’t do that” because her parents wouldn’t approve.

This is not to say they weren’t supportive of her individual wishes; they were, and are. There were just some choices she would rather not have garner their disapproval, and she acted accordingly. This was completely alien to me. My attitude– and advice to her– was consistently, “screw what your parents think, they’ll get over it, just do what you want.” I never truly understood not only the function but the feeling of duty to one’s parents until now.

My mother and her mother came over to help me prepare for the move into the warehouse. For those who are new to the discussion, I decided to move into an artists’ colony in a warehouse in East Baltimore’s Station North arts district. I would be spending all of my time writing, producing textile arts, and pursuing my journalistic career.  So my mom and my grandmother come over to my apartment, one floor of an old rowhome, to help me pack.

All the while, they’re asking questions. I try to break the idea in gently. Yes, it’s in a rougher area. Yes, I have a gated parking lot inside the building. Yes, we have elevator keys. Yes, my cat is coming with me. Yes, they are really nice people.  The area’s on the upswing. It’s just received a special designation from the City and a lot of money is being funneled its way… And then they ask me if we can go drive by and see it.

This puts me at a distinct disadvantage. First of all, my mother’s terrified of my neighborhood now. There are more people here than in our entire town.  Also, I don’t have keys yet. That means I can’t pop into the gated lot, go up the elevator, and show off the comparatively clean, pleasant, welcoming space inside the warehouse. I just have to show off the Baltimore office of Social Services, weeds in the sidewalks, and the chicken & lake trout shop adjacent to the boarded-up warehouse that neighbor the Copycat. But I acquiesce, rationalizing that they have to see it sometime, so why not now?

To call the tension “palpable” as we cruised up Guilford Ave and out of the comparative glory of Mount Vernon would be an embarassing understatement. My mother’s eyes bulged behind her sunglasses. My placid, comforting grandmother became snippy as I nervously shouted last-minute turn instructions and tried to figure out what to say to these people. They were mostly silent as we circled the warehouse, me pointing out the large windows and how the surrounding buildings were– mostly– coming up, too. We saw a hipster art girl walk into the warehouse; bonus points for me, showing it’s inhabited by young people like myself.  My grandmother suggests we circle the building again. These women become ominously silent. I know they are scheming.

When we return to my apartment, my grandmother parallel parks and ensures the doors are locked. The seatbelts come off and my mom and grandmother turn to face me in the backseat, selecting their words as if each were choosing the proper filleting knife for a particular fish. They want to be sure. My grandmother takes the more levelheaded route, addressing my financial concerns and telling me that it’s not a prudent course of action to move ‘backwards’– from living alone to having a roommate, from living in a secure area to one where I need a gated parking space. I fumble out something about artist types and how plenty of young people live there, and that it’s not that bad. My mom is interspersing this with comments about how unsafe the neighborhood looks, and how it’s not well-kept like Hampden or Camden or a surprising number of other Baltimore neighborhoods she seems to know by name. I’m still buckled in, sputtering uselessly about the experience, when my mom plays her pocket ace: my grandfather wouldn’t want me living in such an unsafe area. I dissolve completely into sobs, feebly telling my mother that she has just used an unfair trump card. In my weakened state, they are able to quickly apply parent logic to everything– practically throwing money at me to assuage my financial concerns related to living in the apartment of a salaried young journalist when I have become a bartender, promising to come back tomorrow and help me redecorate, and making me promise I won’t move.

And unlike every single time I was ever told “no” before, as a child, as an adolescent, or as a young adult, I don’t fight them. I don’t tell them all the reasons they’re wrong about the neighborhood, and that I’ll prove them wrong, and I don’t care about their sleepless nights overdramatizing the dangerousness of the neighborhood.  I simply say, of course not. I won’t move. I’ll stay. I’ll swallow my pride and accept your help on some of my mounting bills. Somehow it just became crystal-clear to me that my indulgence is simply not worth whatever worrisome hell, real or imagined, I’d be putting them through. Strangest of all, I don’t feel conflicted or regretful. In the turn of that one moment, I simply lost all desire to do something that my mom and my grandmother don’t want me to do. Unexpectedly, I found out the meaning of filial duty.

Doin’ it, wow… August 10, 2007

So I’m moving into this artists’ commune/colony next week. The other residents seem like a chill group of people, and they were really receptive about my quilting, which I think is awesome. We’re incorporated as a nonprofit. We’re remodeling this crazy warehouse with gorgeous (and not-so-gorgeous) graffiti all over the walls. I am beyond stoked. There will be fire hooping. There will be stretches of fabric suspended from the ceiling to perform in-air dance. There will be endless room and time to explore pretty much anything. Wish me luck! Headed to NYC this weekend for a Zap Mama concert; I’ll blog it when I return.

I’ve never done this sort of thing before… July 30, 2007

After some recent consideration of the current state of my life (disaster), I’ve been figuring out what isn’t working for me. One thing I’ve wondered is, if I don’t find the pursuit of a 9-5 job and a picket-fenced house inherently satisfying, why am I doing it? I stop and look at my lifestyle, and while I’m not materialistic, I have configured my life in such a way that I am working to stay ahead of the rat race.  I have a lovely one-bedroom apartment. I have a car with insurance, air conditioning, furniture, clothes. But even that is becoming unaffordable; thank you, Baltimore Gas & Electric!

So I start looking for wiggle room. No, I definitely have to keep the car. I got too good of a deal on it, and I’d lose money if I got out of it today. The rent of my one-bedroom is some of the best in the city. The gas & electric bills aren’t going to decline anytime soon– electricity rates have increased 73% and
gas rates have skyrocketed since deregulation. [As an aside, Constellation Energy has become one of the most successful for-profit utility companies in the nation; shocking!]  Basically, I’m stuck.

What do I want to do with my time? Right now, I’m bartending and waitressing to pay rent. I constantly worry about money, a wholly absorbing concern. I want to do less of that. I want to go on little daytrips. I want to be able to budget money and time for quilting projects, painting, and other visual arts and craft work. I want to write every morning, and I want to cook. I want to stay organic and expend as few natural resources as possible.  I want to break my life down to the smallest components and rebuild it from scratch.

So I am trying to move into the Copycat building. This is an artist space/warehouse in Baltimore with wide open living spaces, private bedrooms, and shared utilities and common areas. In this arrangement,  my cost of living would be incredibly low even after my automotive costs are included. I think this move would allow me greater flexibility to make “just enough” to live on by working a few days a week, enabling me to pursue more creative work without burning myself out.

Has anyone else tried this? It’s a very communal environment and I’ve never lived in a place like this before. Anyone have advice, thoughts, concerns?