Waiting to Wake Up

I can hardly believe my life these days. Everything is coming together in such incredible ways that make me suddenly stop in the middle of the street or in conversation and say, 'this is really happening' because I need to remind myself that I'm not hallucinating.

Saturday morning, I took a train out to Chicago with two grand in cash and met up with Kriss & Mellie (roommates extraordinaire). We took a bus out to Ukrainian Village to sign the lease and give the security deposit (the two grand in cash). Our landlords are a middle-aged Ukrainian couple who are incredibly friendly and incredibly laid back with thick, thick, thick accents. Olga (the wife) had given the key to the handyman to show it to some potential clients in case we didn't sign the lease, and the tenants were both out of the state, so we had to wait until eight o' clock.

So, we walked out of Ukrainian village until we got to Wicker Park. We went to a vegan burger joint, a pastry shop called Sweetcakes, a couple awesome record stores, Ragstock (a sweet thrift store that also sells new clothes), a three level bookstore named Myopics that has a claustrophobic maze for a fiction section, and a bunch of comic shops to indulge Kriss.
Around seven o' clock, we started walking toward the apartment. Kriss checked his clock to time the walk. After a short time, Kriss said, 'see that street up there?' referring to the street a block away. 'That's our street. It's been nine minutes.'

So, with a lot of time to spare, we stopped at Walgreens for snacks and then went looking for the grocery store. Kriss asked a girl in a nail salon by the Walgreens (which is across North Ave from our apartment) and she told him it was four blocks up the street. Passing Three Stooges' Meats and Fruits and Habibi's Fast Food and Grocery (they sell falafel. Two blocks from our apartment. Sweet.) we see the grocery store--an obnoxiously yellow building with red and green stripes running along the top. Kriss decried it as tacky. We walked in, seeing some of the signs advertising deals ("Well, that's a pretty good deal," Kriss said skeptically). Kriss led the expidition and we followed him to the far wall, where twenty pound bags of rice were being sold for $14.50. Kriss swore. We walked into the next aisle and were met with more outrageously low prices. And the next aisle. And the next. And then we walked into the dry bean aisle. I have never heard swear so much out of joy in my life. Kriss is content.

(I forgot to mention. Next to the Walgreens across from our apartment is a utility box where someone had graffitied the name 'Nat')

Five till eight, we walked back to the apartment and showed up right as the handyman got there. He let us into the apartment.
It's a sweet apartment. Incredibly so. I love it. Three bedrooms, one of which will be turned into a music room. There's laundry just outside our kitchen. There's a sweet little tile storage room that I will use as a chillout spot. The living room is about twice the size of my living room at Logan Village.
I love it. It's a good thing we already signed the lease, because if I needed to put on my poker face for a landlord, I would have failed.

Wednesday, Kriss called me to tell me that the place we were looking at wanted six months of rent up front, so we didn't know what we were going to do about it or where else we might move to. He mentioned a duplex with three vegan girls, which I was a little iffy on. He sighed, exasperated saying that he was doing everything he could, but he didn't know what other options we had. I told him not to worry, because there was a place out there. "God has had His hand in this from the very beginning. He's not going to lead us this far and then NOT have the perfect place for us."
"Do you really think God is in this?"
"Absolutely. The way things just fell together, there's no way He isn't."
"Wow. That's comforting. I don't know, I'm still worried."
"Don't be. There's a place."

I got to tell Kriss that I told him so several times.

Welcome to Wicker Park, baby.