Mortified Monday #7

AAAAAGGGHHHHH

Just Listen To The Music Of The Traffic In The City

Last week, there was a school shooting two doors down from my building that made national news. (These days “school shooting” is synonymous with “mass shooting” but only two people were shot and they’re both still alive.) News vans have been parked outside of my front door all week. Even though it was a personal dispute that could have happened anywhere (a mentally-ill student shot a financial aid officer), the dialogue in the city immediately turned to downtown safety.

Oh and then. Then! A week later the former Governor of Missouri got robbed a couple blocks from my neighborhood. (This was a silly story because (a) a panhandler was asking for gas money and everybody knows it’s never “gas money”, (b) the Governor whipped out his money-clip, like who isn’t going to grab that and run, and (c) he was walking down a 2-block stretch that I never walk down even with Justin because it’s just parking garages and alleyways and creepily empty.)

Anyway, conversations about downtown safety infuriate me because these conversations are usually sparked by people in the county who have no idea what they are talking about. Hell, I knew nothing about downtown until I moved here. People come here for games or the occasional festival and then leave, and unless they work downtown, county people just imagine it as this desolate concrete wasteland full of boarded up windows, homeless people and gunfire.

They aren’t completely to blame for this, though. Justin has been living here for about 8 years and said it was a completely different world back then – he barely felt safe walking to his car. But thanks to redevelopment grants, the addition of cool places like City Garden and the City Museum, and the first grocery store in forever, Downtown’s population increased by almost 3,000% in the last 10 years. It’s an awesome street now.

My street is almost always in the news for bad reasons. It’s a shame because Washington Avenue has such a rich history, a vibrant community, and it’s absolutely stunning. In fact, it was voted one of the Top 10 Streets in the country.

Usually it’s in the news because Washington Avenue is where everyone parties on the weekend, and during the summer the crowds and noise are totally out of control. It used to be known as the nightclub district, but there were tons of shootings when the clubs got out at 1:30 or 3am, and eventually they shut down the problem clubs. However, there are still shootings, robberies, and other violent crimes. Hell, someone got murdered over a bag of Cheetos a few months ago.

Directly north of Washington is Delmar, a street so notorious for its divisiveness that the BBC made a documentary about it. (I don’t live in the rich white neighborhood that the documentary covers, though – that would be the Central West End.) Delmar marks the entrance to North City, which is where St. Louis earns the statistics that make it the most dangerous city in the county. There’s at least one murder a week. Contrary to popular belief, North City is much more dangerous than East St. Louis. So the juxtaposition of (mostly) wealthy loft dwellers to North City residents is a little jarring, and they typically don’t mesh well.

South of Washington is Locust. Up until a few months ago, Locust was in the news because of a homeless shelter run by an infamous televangelist named Larry Rice. Larry Rice allows people to loiter on his sidewalks. This usually bled over to the park across the street between Locust and Washington–a park which no one went to because it was full of sleeping homeless people and smelled like urine. The sidewalks surrounding his shelter were always packed with people.

I walk past this shelter every day and witnessed the crowds firsthand. They circled around the entire block of the building and even the sidewalk in front of the school across the street. This was a problem not because they were homeless but because Larry Rice does not allow drunk or high people inside of his building, and he doesn’t let people come and go during the night. If you’re in, you’re in. So the people who were outside waiting for food were the people who did not want to follow his rules. These people liked to yell lewd things at women (including me in my running pants), urinate on the street, do drugs and more.

Eventually, I started seeing more and more women out there. And then I started seeing strollers. This is when the city shut down the sidewalks AND put a fence around the park for “construction”. (You’ll recognize that reporter as the guy who got that infamous Todd Akin quote.) In fact, the sidewalks are still fenced off.

Back when all the nightclub shootings were happening, Erin T. asked me  to write about what it’s like to be a Washington Avenue resident. Honestly, I love it. I can’t get enough of it. I’m far enough away from the main stretch of bars that the noise doesn’t bother me. The most noise I usually get is when a wedding reception lets out at 11 (drunk bridesmaids are THE WORST) or if a band is playing at the City Museum.

Sure, it’s noisy. It’s dangerous at night. There are break-ins in my parking lot. There are muggings near me. People try to break into my building. I get asked for “gas money” every day. Dudes like to rev their engines in my alley at 2am and it echoes off all of the buildings. There’s one asshole who has a train horn instead of a car horn. I hate that guy. And when I’m visiting my mom or my friends in my hometown, I miss it. I miss running around in the middle of the night, feeling 100% safe. I miss the crickets and back porches and trees.

But I LOVE walking to work. I love walking to the grocery store and the general store and bars and restaurants and games and concerts and festivals and the MetroLink. It’s the closest I’ve felt to living in London since I was there – every errand feels like a little journey because I have to walk to get there. I love seeing so many familiar faces on such busy sidewalks. I love the diversity and the noise and the action. I love my building full of riff-raff artists; it leads to something hilarious and weird every day. I live in the same building as a pig, for pete’s sake. In my front yard? THE WIENERMOBILE. (Okay, once.) And my backyard? My backyard is one of the most incredible, insane, weirdly beautiful buildings in the entire country.

I’m a huge advocate for living downtown, but I’m not a total idiot about it. I stay on populated streets. I don’t walk alone at night unless it’s busy and full of people. I stay away from empty, shadowy blocks during the day. If an inebriated/mentally-ill person is screaming in the middle of the sidewalk (at least once a month), I cross the street or I wait until he’s distracted. I tell panhandlers that I have no cash on me, and I’m usually telling the truth. I carry mace in my hand when I walk to the Y at 5 in the morning. I also learn my lessons:

I’ve been trying to make an effort to get more involved, too. I plan on volunteering at shelters once the wedding hoopla is over (just not Larry Rice’s shelter). My next-door neighbor runs Town Hall Meetings and they are my new favorite thing. (It is truly a Parks & Rec episode brought to life.) Here’s me at 14:20 rambling about downtown safety with my hand in front of my face:

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I plan on living down here for as long as I can. In St. Louis speak, that means until my kids are old enough to go to school. The biggest problem that downtown or any other part of the city has is that the schools are heartbreakingly awful. So unless you can afford Catholic School, you move to the county when the oldest turns 5. That’s just how it is. But who knows? We’re currently having an election for a new mayor for the first time since 2001, and both the current mayor and his opponent are making schools a central issue. So maybe it will continue to get better, and maybe I can stay here a little longer. I hope so. Downtown West is the best.

Mortified Monday #6

Moodboard 6: Dress Shopping

I’m going wedding dress shopping next week. It’s really making me tap into every insecurity I have about myself. I’ve lost some weight and I certainly look different than I did a year ago, but it’s right after the holidays and I’m feeling more obese than ever.

Justin has been really awesome: joining me in a drinking ban, not bringing home any candy or ice cream, pushing me to go to the Y when he can tell I’m in the mood to skip it, and going on hour-long walks with me when we took an emergency trip to Indiana this weekend.

Seriously, this is why I didn’t want a wedding in the first place. I just wanted a party! How did this happen? Why the fuck can’t I wear what I want to my own party? Also: white? Let’s be real on both aesthetic and moral levels. Ugh, gross. Anyway, Wedding Dress Shopping, my feelings:
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Over The ‘Möön

We’re going to Iceland on our honeymoon! Iceland was something we bonded over from the beginning of our relationship, but I don’t know if I expected us to visit so soon. When we got engaged, Justin insisted on planning and paying for the honeymoon himself. He would always just say, “I’m working on it,” when I asked him, plus he’s a full-time student, so I was starting to worry that we would end up in Branson. I’m still in shock.

The best part was how he told me. We had just returned from visiting both of Justin’s parents, who don’t celebrate Christmas so much as they throw their own version of “Oprah’s Favorite Things”. I grew up in a disabled family, so Christmas was pretty tame when I was a kid and I’m still a little freaked out by their generosity. I won’t get braggy and tell you what I got (okay, except for my yellow Fjällräven Kånken), but I was basically already like this:

and then Justin asked if I wanted to know where we were going. He pulled out a binder with Iceland on the cover, and told me that we’d be spending 7 days in Iceland with our own travel agent, a rented car, a full itinerary, all expenses paid. He saved up and paid for everything himself and planned it all in secret. Then he pulled up a video of the glacier that we get to stand on. I just sat there, looking at the TV and the living room full of presents and my sweet, adorable future husband, then I literally burst into tears like he proposed all over again.

Okay, so I got braggy. I’ll keep going! This is all the stuff we’re going to see!

Hobbit Houses!

Glaciers!

A Geothermal Spa!

Gullfoss!

The Great Geysir!

Reykjavík!

Oh, the next day Justin left to go BACK to his dad’s, so aside from a couple hours at my grandma’s house, I got to celebrate what will probably be my last Home Alone Christmas. Next year, I’ll have three families, and while they are all a total blast, I’m going to miss spoiling myself rotten … as well as any excuse to use my favorite burglar alarm:

Easy Does It

Happy New Year!

I know that usually I make a big effort with my annual or monthly resolutions, but last year’s goal went right out the window when I got engaged on New Year’s Eve. Also, while I’ve logged 1200 miles if you count walking, my goal to run 1200 miles in one year had to be put on hold after multiple injuries.

So this year, I only have a few goals, at least until my wedding:
1. No drinking in January.
2. Make it through my wedding alive.
3. Blog weekly, even though no one really blogs anymore and my life can easily be summed up on Facebook/Twitter.
4. Lose 20 pounds (I mean it this time?).

New Year’s Eve was pretty great, even if it was lazy. Justin and I went over to Rob’s house for his annual chicken dinner, where we saw a lot of old friends, talked about even more old friends, laughed our asses off and ate some amazing food. (I’m pretty relieved we left right after Keith showed up with bacon-wrapped dates because I only had time to shove three in my mouth.)

Most of the Squids have either moved or had some sort of falling out, so we never get together the way we used to. Last night made me really nostalgic, and also very grateful considering the Squids are how I met my future husband.

Speaking of Justin, we’re both getting over colds so we decided to leave at 9 and just take it easy for the rest of the night. We had a little mini-celebration for the year anniversary of our engagement by watching “The Five-Year Engagement”, drinking champagne, and toasting the New Year.

This was the first time we’ve rung in the new year with our cat, so we joked that we should make him a hat. Then while Justin was in the bathroom, I whipped this up with a piece of origami paper (in Squid Colors; hay):

He was super pumped: