PAPER ANNIVERSARY
It doesn’t feel like there’s much to report this week. Kechi and I are getting on with the business of living. Northwestern’s Litowitz MFA offers a very generous stipend—they’ve even raised it recently—but that stipend doesn’t arrive until the end of September, so we’re still on a bit of a shoestring. That means we haven’t yet received the contents of our home in Baton Rouge. We’ve been sleeping on an air bed since we got here, with only the clothes and items we packed for the summer. We’ve received some housewarming gifts from my mother, though, which are indispensable while we wait for our dishes, pots and pans, furniture, and books books books.
I’m trying to get used to the weather. I know summers are milder here in Chicagoland, but to my Louisiana-accustomed body, it feels like Fall has come very early. I’m honestly a bit worried about the winter. So many people we’ve talked to have spoken of the cold like it’s the tenth circle of Hell. Supposedly, the wind off the lake makes the winter chill far worse than it is even in Maine. We’re going to have to spend big money on coats and layers, but it sounds to me like an adventure. I’d be more worried, I think, if our apartment didn’t have central heat.
Speaking of our apartment, I love it. It’s smaller than we were looking for originally, but it’s lovely. There’s a great fancy showerhead and an LED light in the bathroom, and our intention is to use what was originally the living room as our bedroom because that way we’ll be able to fit our bed and other furniture at the same time. The kitchen is small, but the gas stove works well. Karate isn’t thrilled about the stairs and how slippery they can be going down, but he’s adjusting well enough. At first, he balked, and I was a bit worried he was having some joint pain or fatigue. He did just turn 7. A lot of the ailments I’ve worried about with Karate have turned out to be nothing. When my former roommate and I first got him, the ladies at Animal Rescue of New Orleans told us they thought he was deaf. As far as I can tell, he’s not deaf at all—he just doesn’t care to answer to his name, and fireworks and thunderstorms don’t bother him at all. The only time he got scared was during hurricane Ida, but I think that’s mostly because my roommate and I were frightened in our high-rise hotel room there in the middle of the New Orleans CBD.
Trump wants to send the National Guard into Chicago just like he brought them to DC, and the whole thing is just exhausting. The idea of Louisiana sending troops anywhere else when New Orleans and Baton Rouge are as they are is just… absurd. And we saw what happened in those other instances—more chases and fatal car crashes, etc. Evanston’s crime rate is very low, and while Kechi and I still want to live within the city limits, at least we don’t have to worry about that. Of course, Trump is in the process of wrecking the ACA, so I lost the subsidy for my insurance, taking it from $78 a month to over $500, which is just not an amount I can afford to pay. For a month, I went without insurance since I knew that Northwestern’s superior insurance would kick in at the beginning of September. There are still copays and such, but the fact that I won’t have to pay an insurance premium at all over the next three years is a major comfort.
Evanston is a beautiful little suburb, but I learned years ago that city living is what I love best. The couple days we spent in our high rise hotel room in downtown Chicago were pure magic, and that’s where we want to live. We’ve also been wanting to live in Rogers Park, as I suspect Kechi is going to be joining me at Northwestern before all is said and done. Rogers Park is the northernmost part of the city right outside Evanston. I don’t think we move to both places in the next few years. I’m already sick of moving so much after leaving New Orleans, but I guess it’s not time to think about that.
Kechi and I have been to a couple open mics and a comedy competition in Chicago since we got here. Kechi has gone up, but I haven’t, since I’m so focused on getting the initial drafting of this book finished before classes begin. We’re heading to Detroit this weekend for the christening of one of Kechi’s cousins, and it looks like we’ll finally get to enjoy a little jaunt by boat across Lake Michigan. Things are shaping up! We’re also preparing for our first wedding anniversary later this month. The year since we made it official has passed in a flash. So much has happened, and we’ve been through so many cities, emotions, hurdles. I couldn’t ask for a better partner, and I’m thrilled for the opportunity to celebrate us a little harder than usual.
All this time I’ve been heavily at work on DEAD END BOYS, trying not to wonder too much about how it will be received. The funny thing is that part of the inspiration for this book is the Will Smith movie, Bright. It’s not a good picture. The worldbuilding makes little to no sense, for one thing—but it does feature a Black man wielding a magic wand and tearing shit up. While I’m not a fan of the flick, that image was something I needed to see, and I knew I was all-in for a sequel if it were to be made. So I’m doing my best to write about the Pandemic, about comedy, and about magical Black folks beating back Hell itself. I can’t be the only one who needed this imagery as much as I do, so hopefully it will connect with a lot of folks.