My eyes hurt. This is a physical state not unfamiliar to this hunk of flesh since arriving in Chicago. Yes, it’s a pretty sunny out and I have found myself becoming better friends with garish neon sunglasses more than I may have on any other summer back home in the motherland. But that’s an aside. I’m tired because I work too much and I don’t sleep enough. I whine. And for that, I am sorry. I still probably don’t appreciate being in Chicago as much as I should, even though I am having a super (people here say ‘super’ too much, I don’t know if this is some leftover of that Marvellous [note capital ‘M’ for pun] man in the red pants being all great, either way I’ve found myself saying it and I apologise in advance for when I get home) good time. This work has meant I’ve been pretty quiet on the blogging front. And by quiet, I mean inaudible. Whenever I’m writing I generally feel like it should be for the purpose of either of my internships, as between those two intern positions, my paid job, intoxication and sleeping, I don’t have a whole lot of time to myself. So I’m going to give some kind of narrative of the last eight (?) weeks of my life and hopefully that can plug gaps and bridge canyons.
To truncate a long story: I landed on my feet. I stumbled off a plane in O’Hare on Sunday, 25th June with the intention to sleep on the kind floor of the Couchsurfers I stayed with in Chicago in the summer of 2010 for the first week whilst I busied myself around the city trying to find a job to pay me and a roof to go over my head. This mostly boiled down to refreshing Craigslist (noun; ‘Merican Gumtree) every half an hour. Housing was the first priority. I figured it would be best to find an apartment and then search for a job within the vicinity of that apartment. I had a couple of potentials lined-up; one man who lived in a five bedroom house in Humboldt Park where he let out every other room to strangers and had a list of rules that I had to sign an agreement to, which included such ludicrous requirements as “guests must be pre-approved”. And he worked in ICT and wasn’t Sam Hutchings, so I didn’t really fancy his company. Another place in I was supposed to look at was in Wicker Park, a location that compares admirably to youknowwhatareas of East London. It is an awesome neighbourhood, despite the comparison and was where I had wanted to live in when I first arrived in Chicago (maybe I’ve just become all that I hate) but inevitably the cheeky bastards never called me back.
The first one I actually viewed was an apartment in north Lakeview, just outside of Wrigleyville between Ashland and Southport on Irving Park. I looked at the place on the Wednesday after arriving in Chi-town, buttered up my potential roommates with PBRs and then got a call 30 seconds after leaving the apartment that they wanted me (over a girl that serenaded them with song – accents are worth their [aural] weight in gold). I haven’t looked back since. I pay $320 a month (read: fuck all) and live with a DePaul University student (Becca) and an eccentric carpenter for theatre productions (Eli) with a third roommate that looks a lot like a revolving door. Eli lives in the front room behind a makeshift curtain made of sheets and a piece of string, hence the low low low rent. He sleeps on his back with legs crossed and his arms behind his head. I would compare it to the same manner that a man may casually lay in a park with an “I’ve not got a lot to do, please come talk to me, stranger” kind of nonchalance about it. How anyone can sleep like that is beyond me but it entertains me, regardless. We have an accessible roof. I got shouted at by our Hispanic landlord in broken English for going on the roof after four days. It’s safe to say, he’s not my biggest fan. We’re also bad at keeping this place to any kind of reasonable level of cleanliness. This may largely be down to the fact that every drain is blocked and I haven’t had a shower without standing in either Eli, Becca or the revolving door’s filth in a few weeks. But I could care more. I’ve lived like this to some extent for the last four years and I’m a firm believer and boosting that immune system.
At this point, I’d been in Chicago for 3 days. It was that day that I saw an advert on Craigslist for a vegan restaurant having an open call 1-4pm the following day all manner of positions, including my desired bartending gig. I turned up about an hour late with some fumbled excuse about being at a meeting for one of my intern positions. My then future manager, Thaddeus, had interviewed some 40 odd people by this point and then to top it all off, had to deal with some bumbling British kid. I was asked such questions as “have you made any craft cocktails before?”, to which I said ‘errrr... no’ and then “would you like to learn?”, which was met with an uneasy ‘sure’. This was the first job that I had actually interviewed for so I entered the place with an air of casualness, which would have been replaced by desperation a couple of weeks down the line. Firstly, I had just arrived, it was the first place I tried to get a job at and I figured there were lots of jobs that would all be easily obtained. Secondly, I had just moved in to an apartment five miles north of the restaurant’s location. Thirdly, I felt that the place was a bit too good for me and I didn’t think I would have what it would take to be a “craft cocktail” server. Trademark pessimistic lack of confidence in my own capability overrode most other emotions. Regardless, I was scheduled to work the following Tuesday and, in my head, I had nothing to lose. Eight weeks later and I’m doing 35 hour weeks and making more money than I’ve ever made before in my working life. Thaddeus still, to this day, does not really know why he employed me but he freely admits that the accent certainly had some bearing. They say I bring the Old World class to the restaurant.
The job is great though and (probably) even compares to the 63336 gig I had in terms of ‘Ben Small’s best jobs list’. My colleagues are awesome, despite 75 per cent of the conversation being about my nationality and/or making fun of said nationality. I get to drink lovely beer and eat delectable vegan cuisine all the time. It’s easy going and the even when it is stressful you have the satisfaction of knowing that you get rewarded for the hours of intense cocktail shaking. It provides a much better motivation than the measly £6 an hour that we get back home, however much work we end up doing. Yesterday I even conjured my very own autumnal blackberry and gin (England represent) based cocktail that shall be gracing the menu in time for the change in seasons with some stupid pun name that plays on the fact that I’m from a land far away. All in all, it’s a great job and in the last two or so weeks I’ve really started to feel confident and capable as a barkeep. At long last I have begun to retain the five odd ingredients and their measurements that comprise each of the twenty-something cocktails on the menu.
So yeah, I landed on my feet. My advice for those that also fancy the upright, two steady foot approach: be lucky, give people beers and have an accent of the Old World Order. The ease of my transition has, however, only made me feel slightly morose about how I haven't really got very long in this city, in the big scheme of things. I've gone full circle from the anxious "four months is forever" attitude that I had before I boarded that plane way back in June. Time is going to fly.
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