Thank You, Craigslist, the Modern Newspaper

In the opening pages of Devil in the White City, Larson’s narrator describes Chicago as both a liberating and precarious opportunity for women in the late 19th century. (This resonates with me on a variety of levels, but I’ll save you the literary and feminist theory.) I was struck by the following warning for ladies that Larson quotes from the March 30, 1890 Chicago Tribune: “[N]o thoroughly honorable business-man who is this side of dotage ever advertises for a lady stenographer who is blonde, is good-looking, is quite alone in the city, or will telegraph her photograph. All such advertisements upon their face bear the marks of vulgarity…” The reason this struck me is because you’ll find exactly the same thing on Craigslist today, and, I bet, unsuspecting women still respond.

I recall trolling through the employment pages of Craigslist Chicago throughout summer 2008, and for much of spring 2009, reading very similar postings, playing themselves off as legitimate employment ads: I would read them aloud to my friends for a laugh. Under the office/admin category, men would post ads for young women who were “good-looking” to fill a personal assistant position, and part of the application requirements stated, “Must include photograph.” Now, we all know there are certain areas of Craigslist where you’d expect to find something like this, but I guess I was surprised to find them masquerading as something legitimate. I just feel badly for any young woman who unsuspectingly applied and interviewed for one of those positions.

When I first started using Craigslist, I was fairly naïve, myself. The site is pretty much useless if you don’t have a sizeable population that’s actually going to use it. So, I didn’t really know much about it before I started using the site to find jobs in Chicago. Yet, if it weren’t for Craigslist, I most likely would not be where I am now. I did not come across the posting for my 6-month internship on any other sites; in fact, the line of business was a bit different from anything I’d ever really contemplated. But I found it on Craigslist, applied, and ta-da, I was moving to Chicago to work for a big corporation. But not before finding roommates--through Craigslist, of course. I met my future roommates when I came to interview, and I was comfortable with them and their home (so comfortable that I didn’t meet with any of my other Craigslist possibilities), and had no problem moving in two weeks later. In fact, I never had a problem with my Craigslist roommates at all.

When my internship was ending in the spring, and I started job hunting again, Craigslist had been thoroughly infiltrated with scammers (I hadn’t noticed it being as much the summer before). Well aware of the hardships faced by so many Americans during the recession, many posts would prey on desperate job-seekers, directing them to other sites to try and gather personal information, or tricking them into scam jobs (like my friend Jess who handed out The Printed Blog for hours one evening and then went to pick up her paycheck and they made up an excuse not to pay her.) I finally learned not to include any personal information on my resume, other than an email address for contact, unless I could find a legitimate company website through which to apply, or the company responded to me and, in some legitimate way, identified themselves. There are a lot of honest people on Craigslist, but, as in reality, there are plenty of ill-intentioned souls lurking there, too.

I like living in a place where people actually use the site, even if you do have to be cautious about how you use it. I actually owe Craigslist quite a bit, and I feel like it’s an integral part of city life, particularly for those who live on a budget, because the site is loaded with deals. If I’m looking for used furniture, or freebies, or even a date, I can go there. That last part was a joke; I do, however, know some women who have met guys through Craigslist, but that, to me, is scarier than interviewing for one of those sleazy ads for a leggy young chick.

I read in the news recently that Craigslist encompasses the simplicity for which newspapers strive but can’t achieve, and that the secret to that simplicity—and the site’s success—is that its creators didn’t care about making a profit (here’s an article from Boing Boing that will insert you into that discussion.) I feel like Craigslist really does encapsulate the simplicity of early newspapers. You’ve got your classifieds, your job postings, your personals, your humor/advice/opinions (Missed Connections, Rants and Raves), your apartment-hunting. All you’re missing is news. And what makes Craigslist better than a newspaper is the fact that there’s a search box in every category: minimum energy, maximum reward. And as much as I don’t want to see print newspapers go extinct, I won’t be giving up Craigslist anytime soon.

Lessons Learned while Driving, or Not Driving, as the Case May Be

Labor Day weekend did not begin as planned, which threw a wrench into subsequent weekend events, and left me both exhausted and drained when I returned to Chicago on Monday. It’s a wonder I even planned to leave the city at all this weekend, considering that jazz fest was happening. Family, however, is even more important to me than live jazz; plus, I felt an urgency to get out of town for a few days. After work on Friday, I rushed home, packed up my car with all my laundry and a few other things, put my key in the ignition and my car into drive and tried—-to—-go. But my car decided not to move. Stubborn and bull-headed, I managed to drive it to the other side of the road, but all the while I felt as though it were dragging something terribly heavy. Had my car been booted and I didn’t even realize it? You can't actually drag a boot, right?

With my car’s rear hanging precariously in the way of taxi drivers (I couldn’t get it any closer to the curb), I stepped out and took a look. Around the car, under the car. Nothing there. Then I noticed a chalky-looking streak marking the path from where my back left tire had been on the other side of the road, to where it now sat. Oh man, I’d drug at least one of my back tires clear across the road. I cringed at the thought of a bald spot. What in the world was going on here?

After a few seconds of staring at the tire with "WTF?" stamped on my forehead, I assumed, correctly, that somehow the emergency brake had gone on, even though I never use it. I climbed back into my car and messed around with it, putting it on, and taking it off until—-wa-la!—-it let go. "Home free!" I thought. But then it occurred to me that if the emergency brake had gone on all of its own accord before, it might do it again. So I played with the brake a little more to make sure it was really, truly unstuck. It wasn’t. It got stuck again and this time, no amount of pulling the lever was going to release it. So, I dialed AAA for a tow, and called my mom to tell her I didn’t know when I’d be able to get home.

I immediately scrambled to unload everything I'd just loaded into my car before the tow truck arrived, since I had no idea how long my car might sit in a shop. When Alfonso arrived (that was the name of my tow truck driver), he was convinced that my brakes were simply frozen because I don’t drive my car enough, so he attempted to roll the car back and forth to unstick them. All this served to do, however, (as I was later dismayed to find out), was bend my brake drum and cylinder (which I may already have done trying to drive my car across the road). Soon he was towing my front-wheel-drive car from the back (since the back tires wouldn’t move), with the seat belt firmly holding the steering wheel in place.

On the way to the mechanic, Alfonso gave me a tutorial in Chicago’s grid system. He made me draw a plus-sign on the back of his AAA pad and mark off State and Madison, then he had me mark some other major streets (like North Ave.) and told me the corresponding block numbers of each. Now, I’ve had people tell me about the grid system before, but no one has ever actually showed me and all I ever really wanted was an explanation of the diagonal streets, and I got that, too.

All the while, Alfonso (can you tell I enjoy his name?) told me that he’d have me out of town by 8 pm. That was getting pretty late, since that wouldn’t put me into T-town until 1 am EST, but I just wanted to get my car fixed. In hindsight, it probably would have been better if I’d just gone home Saturday, but I just needed to get out of Chicago. Sometimes, you just do.

A few hours later, and several hundred dollars lighter, my car was fixed. I'd had a mini-heart attack at the price, but was happy that I could drive my car safely, and that I hadn’t been going 80 on the highway when my emergency brake decided to kick in, unexpectedly. And while Saturday may not have gone according to plan, and I may have been in the most wretched mood of my entire life that day (a result of sleep deprivation, accruing stress and, possibly, Friday's full moon), the last weekend of summer, as with the season as a whole, was not a total bust. After all, I got to see a lot of people I love. I did, however, wind up driving west on the toll road on Monday still feeling the shadow of Saturday and wishing I'd had a few more days of vacation to shake it off.

Thank God long drives tend to be therapeutic for me. I have to admit that by the time I rolled into the city, the familiar skyline sent electricity through me, giving me goosebumps (as beautiful things often do), and lifting my spirits. I remembered that one year before, on Labor Day, I'd timidly driven into town, terrified of the traffic and the distinct possibility of getting lost. My car loaded with belongings, I'd carefully made my way to the home of the roommates I'd met through Craigslist and prepared to start an internship I'd landed two weeks before. This Labor Day, I could see the contrast of my two selves as clearly as day and night. I am still as thrilled by the city as I was the first time I drove in from the Skyway, but I am far less intimidated. I felt such a rush as I merged into city traffic on Monday, turning up my music, aggressively weaving in and out of traffic, and cruising along the familiar highway until I was soon parked on the street below my apartment. There is no denying that I am not the same girl I was when I first came to the city, and that thought makes me smile again as I write this.

Happy Happenstance

First, my apologies for neglecting to post for over a month (where does the time go?). Since my last post, I have been busy watching some of my dreams come true, not the least of which includes securing an apartment in downtown Chicago (seriously, I've been dreaming about this for years).

Apartment-hunting was so much fun. With my budget clearly defined, and Craigslist at my fingertips, I scheduled two and a half days of studio viewings. I arranged all of my apartment-hunting very logically--day one: Lincoln Park; day two: Gold Coast; day three: Wicker Park.

The only thing I actually remember about the first Lincoln Park studios I viewed was how nonplussed the leasing agent seemed. I was clearly wasting his time, and my impression of all of his apartments was that they were as lackluster as him. After that, I spent the afternoon with an agent from an apartment-finding service. He was so skillful a salesman that he nearly convinced me to lease a gorgeous studio with a view of Lake Michigan, which was definitely out of my budget and inconveniently located. He was even fairly convincing about a dingy little studio with a view of—wait for it—a brick wall outside the window. By the end of the day, I almost had my heart set on the studio with the lake view, but I couldn’t help remembering how badly I wanted to live in a building with a bit of character, rather than a cookie-cutter high rise filled with identical white boxes. I knew I had about ten viewings scheduled for the next day, so I told him I’d be in touch.

The second day of apartment-hunting began with a gorgeous, vintage high-rise in the Gold Coast. I arrived on time for my appointment, and was about to head upstairs with the complex manager, when I was cut short by a stiff, academic-looking twenty-something with his doting mom and grandmother. He was there to get his keys so he could show them his new studio and, by God, that made him infinitely more important than me. After a lengthy discussion filled with mom and grandma bragging about the homely-looking young man in front of them (and me awkwardly and impatiently standing by), the manager suggested that we accompany them upstairs so that I could see his studio. The whole ride up the elevator I got an indirect earful from grandma and mom, who went on and on to the complex manager about how wonderful their grandson/son is. Now, I know that sometimes grandmas and moms tend to do that kind of thing, but rather than making a modest rejoinder or gentle attempt to persuade them to stop bragging, he just stood there basking in their praises. I rolled my eyes in a slow, deliberate arc and tried not to gag.

After a painful ascent to the twelfth floor, and an increasingly uncomfortable walk up the hallway, I followed them into the apartment. I feigned interest as I looked inside a few cupboards, took a step or two around the room, and rushed out. As I left the room, I suppressed a laugh. The truth was, I’d only come to look at this place because I’d already made the appointment (hence my annoyance that despite arriving on time, this ridiculous trio delayed my appointment by twenty minutes). Earlier that morning, while describing my plan of action to my boyfriend, he warned me that his brother used to live in this particular high rise (if you want to know which one, I’ll tell you off the record) and it was infested with roaches. It’s a shame, too, because it really is a beautiful building. And it would be such a travesty if grandma and mom were to find out that their darling boy’s adorable new home had roaches. Especially since he shared the stiff superficiality of the building into which he was moving.

If anything, I’d call that building academic. It had that Oxford air to it. And, frankly, I’ve been there and done that; rather than ornate beauty, I was looking for something warm, welcoming, and a little less sterile (and a little less roach-infested). It wasn’t meant to be.

The next few LaSalle St. apartments left me feeling uninspired, as well, and I started to worry that I was going to have to go with the out-of-budget Lincoln Park studio. Luckily, however, I had booked the remainder of the day with viewings on N. Dearborn. As I turned the corner from Division, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself on the lovely tree-lined street that had enchanted me on a drive home last November. I immediately recognized the vintage buildings that emitted a friendly residential feel. I remembered thinking how nice it would be to live there, but how pricey it must be, since everyone was always saying how expensive the Gold Coast is. Once again, however, I was reminded of why it's a bad idea to listen to "what everybody else says." I almost missed a wonderful opportunity…

It’s so funny how sometimes things just fall into your lap. The place I fell in love with wasn’t on my carefully-planned viewing schedule. I just happened to walk by the apartment complex on my way from a viewing farther south, and noticed an ad for studios and one-bedrooms out front. I decided to check it out, and immediately upon walking in, it felt right. I love moments like that, where you step into a situation you hadn’t even planned, and it just feels so authentically you. The lobby greeted me with a lovely, old-fashioned air and it smelled light and flowery (unlike most of the vintage complexes I’d been viewing all morning). Plus, the restaurant and full-service salon on the ground floor made me feel like I was in a real downtown apartment building.

Sandra, the leasing agent was friendly and genuine (as you can tell, I put a lot of stock into the quality of the leasing agent). She wasn’t pushy at all and I was highly impressed with the first studio she showed me. It has a separate kitchen with ample counter space and its own window, two large closets, a good-sized living space and a nice view. We looked at two other studios, but the first won out. As I wrapped up with Sandra, she added the icing on the cake by telling me that if I provided the paint, they would paint my studio any colors I wanted, at no extra charge. You have no idea how much this excited me—I wanted to sign the lease right then and there (it's all about the details). But, fending off impulsiveness, I decided to follow through with three remaining appointments I had scheduled for that day, before signing on the dotted line. Needless to say, a teeny box of a place at Michigan Ave., a crumby little apartment in a shabby building farther up Dearborn, and a couple of over-priced studios later, I still had my heart set on my eighth-floor studio with the separate kitchen. So I went back and filled out my application. I never even made it to Wicker Park.

Gaining My Bearings

Chicago is very well laid-out, but I get lost constantly. Actually, I’m starting to get better about finding my way, and have far fewer instances of driving (or walking) around fruitlessly searching for a road I’ve missed despite my best efforts to follow the directions provided by friends, mapquest, or people on the street. I have the worst sense of direction, a characteristic that has caused me great embarrassment. I sometimes wonder if directional sense is directly related to self-confidence. When I’m somewhere different, or if I have someone in my car that makes me nervous, I feel somewhat defenseless, and very unsure of myself. And then I get lost. But when I first arrived here, I even got lost going back to places I’d already been to. It worsened after my break-up at the end of September. During the past two weeks, however, despite being very ill with strep throat part of that time, I noticed my thoughts decreasingly focused on that old relationship, and my confidence increasing. I’ve only gotten turned around twice since then. I even drove myself to my new doctor’s office with a 102 degree temperature, feeling like crap, into busy downtown and back home again without a hitch. This may sound like a small feat, but it was a pretty big deal to me.

Let me also add that when I drove into Chicago for my interview in August, it was the worst traffic I’d ever driven in in my life. It was a Sunday evening, and I got caught in Cubs traffic, mixed with people driving to the beach, and, in my neighborhood, going to one of the many theatres for Sunday evening shows. On I-90, on the way in, traffic was bumper-to-bumper, and I had to learn, immediately, how to be aggressive in switching lanes. I was tense and nervous and, go figure, I got lost. To be fair, Yahoo! Maps gave me the wrong directions (again) and after I’d missed my exit, I got off at Wacker, recognizing the street name from my brief glances at the Chicago map online. I managed to maneuver us to Lake Shore Drive (which was insane with traffic) and then, my mom called the hotel to get directions and they gave us the wrong directions, because they thought we were heading north, when we were headed south. When I saw that we were about to merge back onto I-90 (and pay more tolls!!) I swerved over and got off at the last exit, spitting out a few expletives in the process. Finally, the hotel gave us the proper directions, and I got back on Lake Shore going north and we made our way to the hotel.

Once we were there, we didn’t want to leave. I felt as though my pores were emanating stress. But, we had to go check out some apartments I’d found on Craigslist, because I didn’t want to have to come back to Chicago just to do that if I got the job. So, after calling my now roommate for directions, we ended up back on Lake Shore drive, and got completely trapped in Cubs traffic. It took us about 45 minutes to get to where I now live (it should have taken about 20.) Anyway, to make a long story short, I have never again seen traffic in the city as bad as I experienced that day. But it made me extremely nervous about driving in Chicago at all, and I’m still getting over it. I fully expected Chicago traffic to be that way all the time; thank God it’s not.

The diagonal streets do not help me out when I miss a street and try to turn around by making three right turns. I want to make a box to get back to the street I was on and go back the way I came, but then a diagonal street pops up and suddenly I’m on some street I’ve never heard of. And there are some places where three streets intersect all at once (like Halstead, Lincoln and Fullerton) where you don’t know what the hell to do because the street signs are impossible to read and you have four possible ways to turn (if you don’t want to go straight.) So, it’s not entirely my fault that I get lost, and sometimes end up on a completely different street than the one I thought I was on. I really need to invest in a compass. I understand north, south, east and west better in this city than I ever had in my life. As long as I know which way I’m headed, I can usually figure out how to get where I’m going. But I don’t have an innate sense of where the lake is (my east reference, of course), so I sometimes don’t know which direction I’m going. And I always forget which way the street numbers are supposed to go if you’re traveling west.

Luckily, I generally only drive on the weekends. I rely on public transportation the great majority of the time. I do get confused, however, when I get off at a new stop and have to head, say, west on a street. I often don’t know if right is west, or left.

It’s embarrassing to get lost, especially when you’re trying to fit in. But I, at least, should give myself a break. After all, I’ve only been living here for two months. I’m still feeling out the situation, like baby roots just creeping out into the soil, looking for the best route to water. I am still uncertain about my future in this city, my place here, and which people I should get close to. I have times when I feel lost—literally and figuratively. But those moments force me to search, until I find my way back home. And I learn something each time. So, I may get lost a dozen more times in the next couple of months, but eventually I’ll have gotten lost so many times I’ll know my way around the whole city! And then, maybe, I’ll have my bearings.