Corrections

First, see Jon Fox's post.

Jonathan Franzen in his book, Corrections, writes the Lambert family into existence. He does this in such seriousness that I felt like he pushed me into the skin and consciousness of each character. The Lamberts are a nice Iowan family, and like most families they are terrifying.

For years, my family would go on summer camping trips with others from our church. We'd roll into KOAs within a two-state radius in our mini vans and pulling our pop-up campers, aluminum boxes whose lids lifted connected to canvas walls and had beds that would pull out of either end. We were all Good Christian families. Parked in adjacent spots with our water and electricity hooked up and a tree in the yard if we were lucky, I could hear the late-night arguments and comments from where I slept on the end of the pull out next to my mom.

Families bring out the worst in people. Chip Lambert feels he could handle his parents if someone would have sex with him a fraction of each minute they were around. Denise gets along great with her mother... for the first twelve hours. Each character has his and her aggressions, agendas, and illusions to uphold, and each will use harm to uphold them.

I grew up in the same city as the Focus on the Family headquarters. In FOTF's pamphlets and magazines there'd be photos of serene people spending time together. The woman would have an aura of fluffy bangs. The children would be seated attentive and wearing clothes in navy blue, forest green, and ivory white.

I'd ask people about what they wanted out of life, and they'd say wistfully, "I'd like to, you know, start a family someday." Like it was the most relaxing way they could think of spending fifty years.

Why not interact with people from a reasonable distance? It gives everyone the space to be charming, shiny, and pleasant. The intimacy of families brings out personal ugliness and vulnerabilities. What's there for it?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ (Not rhetorical, please fill in your answer above.)

Moving with the former Riverside trifecta brought me back to the days of my dad shouting at me to stay put and help set up the pop up. And me sobbing, "But I want to go fucking rollerblading."

In the last week and a half, we suffered some casualties. Christa's hand shook as she drank her lemon drop. I withdrew into a catatonic haze. We sweat a lot, had to share the same towel, moved so many boxes, half heartedly ate dinner. It was very familial.

The morning we left John and Christa in St Paul, Mitch drove because I was hung over from the screwdrivers we drank and cards we played the night before (Hungover Amy). Wisconsin sun over us, Mitch reached across the cab and caught my fingers in his hand. Sweetness engulfed me like we were being cast in amber.

Spokane Exodus

Mitch and I had a hot night in the cab of a U-Haul on the eve of our one-year anniversary. And contrary to my purposely misleading sentence, the night was hot, sweaty due to the average kinetic energy of the air molecules and the ones making up the black faux-leather seats. Not even officially in the midwest (night spent in Somewhere, East Montana) yet on our move to Chicago, and it's already getting uncomfortably humid, the coffee's weaker, the water's starting to taste like it has leaves mixed in with it, and servers in restaurants have started to chat more.

Mitch and I were sitting at a home-style restaurant in Caramel, Indiana with Mitch's grandmother, Barb Story. We had some east-coast beers and Barb had her two fingers of Johnny Walker Red. Our server was talking to us as effusively as one of those lonely people on the STA. She was in her forties. Bleach blonde hair, high-wasted jeans, lime green blouse, cleavage. She took a seat at our table and told us about her life and the specials -- pork tenderloin: a thin slab of pork trippled in thickness by being fried and breaded. A large sesame seed bun with a side of pickles or coleslaw or baked beans or pasta salad with spaghetti noodles.

I related my theory to Mitch, John, and Chri$ta last night when we pulled in late to Denny's in Billings. The closer we get to the Midwest, I predicted, the more talkative our servers will be. If I'm right we might be in trouble.

Bill: I brought you some waters.

Bill: To make a long story short... I worked as a manager in a Denny's in Florida before I moved back up here.

Bill: You don't have Ketchup...?

Bill: I knew the guy who won the world's best server competition... for Denny's. Damn it, what was his name?

Lady in the kitchen: Bill!

Bill: He got on that TV show on the Food Network. Fuck me, what was that called?

(He hits the glass partition above the booth with an open palm.)

Bill: (Presses his clenched fists against his forehead. Closes his eyes.) Shit.

Lady: Bill!

Bill: (Opens his eyes)And you know something else? He was a Russian. Now what does that tell you?

He let the question hang.

I'm thinking about taking Denny's late-night wait staff out of the test group for my theory.

Now, I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm very excited about this move. We saw lightning at 8 a.m., and if we're lucky we'll see lightning bugs tonight.

I've spent all of my Christmases in the Midwest and only have resented a couple of them.

I'm excited for the large Midwestern boys. German decent. 6'2" at the minimum. And brawny from their participation in manly team sports like Wrestling and Eating Pork Tenderloin.

I woke up on my one-year anniversary to the itch of mosquito bites. The cab stuffiness was so bad that we left the U-Haul windows wide open. And as the sun rose in the intricately clouded Montana sky, so did the blood-suckers. (I lived in Spokane for so long I forgot that there are places with lots-o-bugs.) I watched the silhouette of one on the steering wheel; its gut inflated and its insectile shoulders hunched and hairy. I tried to remember how the kid from Hatchet managed.

As much as this move is exactly what I want for my life right now, I regret putting states between me and the best people in the world. My friends are objectively the best combination of charm, intelligence, humor, loving disposition, and quirkiness that can possibly exist. I have no idea how they came to be so rounded up.

I don't expect to find people who laugh at my jokes, who listen to me, and who like me so well as y'all do. Of course, I hope I am wrong. If not, at least I know my waitress will talk to me.

Moving

Motion is relative. Isn't that neat?

Stuff about the earth rotating so that, in comparison to the core, we are moving really fast. We don't feel it because everything around us is moving about as fast. Feeling comfortable in a car going 80 because the cars around you are doing 80 and so is your dashboard* and your friends passed out in the back.

*Maybe "our" dashboards. I don't mean to limit things.

Growing up, my family drove from Colorado to Indiana every year for Christmas. It would take us about 21 hours driving and a few more sleeping in a Walmart parking lot. I remember being confused when I was very young: there is a house and street in C Springs that looks enough like my grandma's house and street (which is in Indianapolis) for me to mistake them. I didn't know why it took us so long at Christmas time to get there when, otherwise, we drove by it all the time.

And even still it's an odd feeling to spend hours in the car, feeling motionless, waiting the arrival of some far destination, to finally get there and feel ever presently Here. I've been telling people that I am moving to Chicago, and what I'll experience is Chicago moving to me. Motion is relative.

Before Spokane moves away from us, Mitch, John, Christa, and I have to pack and clean. Nowhere in Newton's laws of motion did I read anything about taking a Spackle knife and hazardous chemicals to the black mold/bacteria living between the shower tiles. Or not knowing what to do about people always leaving -- an exodus from the spot that is me. How to deal with constant loss due to motion. I did not read that.

I like how on a bicycle it feels like I'm moving. The earth is going under my wheels. I can feel the 15ish mph wind in my face. And when I'm riding with someone else, it feels significant that we have zero mph between us. Nobody's sleeping.

Moving to Chicago (via MN to drop off John and Chri$ta) on Saturday, then catching a train to Denver, riding my bike with my mom a week in CO, train back to Chicago. New place. Don't be afraid to call. I'll always be here.