something old, something new

And now, for a new blog tradition - it’s not new, but dammit, it’s new to me. (Courtesy of the Friday Five.)

1. Where were you born?
Somewhere about halfway between Mattoon and Charleston, Illinois, at Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center.

2. If you still live there, where would you rather move to? If you don’t live there, do you want to move back? Why or why not?
I hated living in Charleston. My father was the clarinet professor at Eastern Illinois University, and that’s why we lived there. I skipped second grade, and from that point on I was lucky if there were more than two people at a time that I could call friends. I had a different best friend every year. I didn’t really connect with anyone - the town itself was mostly white, mostly fairly ignorant, mostly conservative. The kids from Charleston High School all funneled into either EIU or Lakeland. The popular kids were the rich kids, and the smart kids were only ever popular if they were also rich and pretty. A friend of a friend was accidentally outed my freshman year of high school, and several football players drove out to his house, dragged him out into a field, and beat the holy hell out of him. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so after my freshman year I escaped and went to IMSA. I was 14. I’ll never go back for more than just a visit, not even if you paid me. I love my family, but the town just feels empty and unhappy. There’s really no artist culture there - nobody who’s living life passionnately and on the edge because they either have to live that way or die. Everything’s very calm and settled and middle-class and mid-western. No offense to my family or all the people who live there, but I don’t ever want to live like that. On top of which, I love Seattle. It feels more like home than Charleston or Aurora or Northfield ever did … and considering how much I loved Northfield, that’s saying a lot.

3. Where in the world do you feel the safest?
That’s a good question. It’s been a long time since I’ve really felt safe. The doors are always being left unlocked in my current house, and since on top of that my housemates are relative strangers, I never really feel “safe” in my house. With all the sirens flickering street lights and crazy people yelling, I don’t think I ever felt safe, per se, in my Capitol Hill apartment … and god knows I wasn’t safe when we lived in Belltown. There are only so many times you can call 911 before you give up. Okay, this one gets a two-part answer. Recently: Sleeping on the floor with Maurice the teddy bear at Yuki’s house. Before: Second semester of my senior year at St. Olaf, I had Room 302 as a single in Rand (my favorite dormitory on campus - check out the floor plan.) The room was enormous, with a tall ceiling and a wall of window that led out to the soccer fields, and I adored that room. I lived there for five months, two of which I had mono, and despite being miserable, it was my fortress. With the door locked and the windows open to watch the sunset from the depths of my quilt, nobody could touch me. That was safe.

4. Do you feel you are well-traveled?
Um, no. Not really. The summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school, I did a European tour with the Illinois Ambassadors of Music (essentially, everyone who’d been first or second chair at EIU’s band camp in the previous couple of years was invited.) We did London, we did Paris, we did Liechtenstein, we did Luxembourg, we did Switzerland, we went all over the place. We played concerts, we explored the cities, we rode ski lifts, we bought Swiss Army knives. It was a pretty amazing experience. But, it was only two weeks long, and god knows there are places I still need to see. At the moment, I don’t have a passport, so I can’t even go bowling in Canada with Ernie this weekend. Sigh.

5. Where is the most interesting place you’ve been?
Morgins, the sleepy little city we stayed in while we were in Switzerland. It was right on the French/Swiss border, up on the side of a mountain. Surrounded by the most amazing scenery I’d ever seen, and a half hour ride up the mountain from the nearest town below, zig-zagging while your ears popped. In the middle of the town, there was a ski-lift that took you to the top of the mountain, where you could sit and get licked in the head by friendly roaming calves. It was really pretty amazing, and someday (when I’m tired of this working thing) I think maybe I could retire somewhere like that. So peaceful. That would be nice.