Ten Things I Love about U(S)

I think this is what a listicle is. Here’s ten things I really like about the US/Chicago. As an aside, I also quite liked the film Ten Things I Hate about You (but then again, I liked How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days so maybe don’t take cinema advice from me).

1. The Weather (Now); Chicago was a long time waiting for the summer – to the point of me wondering if it was all just an elaborate ruse – but when summer finally arrived, it did not disappoint. Unlike New York where the respite of a cold shower is ruined by the dread of getting of out of it, Chicagoans are saved the suffocating humidity and debilitating heat by the lake (cue your weekly reminder that Lake Michigan is not much smaller than the Republic of Ireland). I’ve had an idyllic summer for myself of shorts and t-shirts and few days of sweating through everything I own. I can swim in the lake, enjoy the balmy evenings and sleep with the window open and just the sheet over me. However, to use a Game of Thrones quote, “winter is coming” and I hear it’s quite something. 
2. Clothes: I love the casualness of style. Whereas in Ireland there is a tendency to cover up imperfect body parts – i.e. if legs aren’t perfectly sculpted then we don’t wear shorts – by virtue of practicality (it’s hot) there’s a far more casual and liberated dress code. It’s refreshing and inspiring to look around and see normal bodies and I say that as a woman who, quite frankly, wouldn’t mind being about two stone lighter and who obsesses about her belly. Women with cellulite wear shorts, little makeup is worn, there’s less of a distinction between “women’s” clothes and “men’s” clothes, shoes are sensible, and arses and thighs are flaunted not hidden. More power to all involved.
3. The Lake: Lately I’ve taken to spending a bit of time with it, like Martha in New Orleans told me to do with the Mississippi. I bring my book, maybe a coffee (in a KeepCup, of course) and spend a good twenty minutes just gazing out at it. Sometimes I just sit on its bank, sometimes I go for a swim. Sometimes I take my notebook down and try to describe what I am looking at, sometimes I ditch the notebook and marvel at the circus of colour that is a Chicago sunset seen from Lake Michigan. The lake gives me enormous peace.
4. Mac and Cheese: Specifically, Annie’s mac&cheese. Oh lads, I’m a martyr for it. It’s a package and you mix it with butter and milk in a saucepan to make the perfect cheesy sauce. It’s cheese in a powder: there’s no way it’s good for you but it’s the perfect quantity and it’s so easy and I’M SORRY DON’T @ ME BLESS ME FATHER FOR I HAVE SINNED I’M SORRY I’ve never had mac&cheese in a restaurant that tasted better than that $2 box of powdered processed heart attack.
5. Difference: All life is here. There’s no sameness here. The people who look like me (i.e. pasty to the point of looking slightly unhealthy or purple) don’t look like me because of the array of tattoos, piercings, shaved heads and green eyebrows sported. And with all the nations of the world here, it’s a maverick’s paradise because the body – its clothing and embellishment – is a canvass for the stories, traditions, styles and heritage of countless cultures.
6. Culture: Chicago has some of the finest museum collections in continental North America – the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Industry and Science, the Adler Planetarium and, of course, the Art Institute of Chicago. Though funding for these depends largely on philanthropy, there is a commitment to making these venues accessible to all by providing free days roughly once a month and for the Art Institute, every Thursday evening. (Obviously, if the commitment was absolute these places would be free like our National Museums and National Gallery so that they can perused at leisure rather than blasted through all in one day but that’s a different blog post). On top of that you’ve got a vibrant theater scene, Chicago’s famous for its comedy clubs and the free concerts at Grant Park during the summer were the highlight of an already-beautiful summer.
7. Books and reading: I made a holy show of myself when I applied for a position at a famous feminist bookstore in Andersonville. They gave me a sheet of writers and I just had to name something that each wrote. I knew about two of them, out of thirty. I so was embarrassed I went to the toilet, googled a load of them, submitted my test sheet and left the shop, never to return sans moustache, trench coat and a large hat. To address that rather large hole in my knowledge, I visited the Writers’ Museum on Michigan Ave. and since then have been reading only American literature. And it has been wonderful. And with the Chicago Public Library sooooo on the ball, I can have any book within days. Every perspective on the human spectrum features in American literature and with every book I feel like I’m pulling back the cover on America and on humanity. I’m now 85% dose.
8. Vanilla lattes: Pure sugar. I shouldn’t be drinking them. You can’t even really taste the coffee, they’re effectively sugar-flavoured milkshakes. I definitely shouldn’t be teaming them up with a dollar doughnut from Dunkin’. But I am and I do. Because the heart wants what the heart wants.
9. Secondhand shops: Homes aren’t furnished here when they’re moved into so if you haven’t got stuff, you’ll be sleeping on the floor alongside the pots and pans. For that reason, there’s a far greater market for secondhand stuff. Secondhand clothes shops are more common here too, as fashion outlets rather than charitable endeavors, which I love because I don’t feel half as bad buying clothes secondhand whereas I feel guilty buying stuff in H&M or wherever because of airmiles, working conditions, exploited labour etc. (am now approaching 87% dose). There’s a secondhand furniture store in Andersonville that accepts donated furniture and sells it on, with all moneys going to fund LGBTQ health and helping uninsured people. For a nation where materialism is so prominent it gladens me that there’s such an opening for secondhand stuff.
10. America, the continent and all in it. I think America is more like a continent than a country. I told a friend from Texas one time that he should totally go to Burning Man in Nevada and he was like, “Doireann that’s like saying you should go to Romania”. Oh right. It’s massive. There’s 327 million of them in it. Viewing them all as ‘Americans’ is as sweeping as calling us all Europeans. Alabama and Vermont are as different as France and Ireland. Memphis and Nashville are only a few hours apart and yet they’re completely different places. From the prairies of Montana to the swamps of Louisiana, the desert of Nevada to Fifth Avenue, New York America is no single unit and I just love learning about her.

Now, I’m not getting carried away and nor should you. I could easily…. in fact, it’d be easier to write a list of ten things I don’t like about America but that’d be a bit ungrateful and rude and I’m not Mike Pence (not gonna rule it out though, I do be stuck for material some weeks). In the mean time though, it’s a grand oul’ place, I’m very content here and I’ll be forever grateful that I got to have a go at it.