Peter was kind enough to invite me to blog at The 'Stache every month. I don't know why...I think maybe he got me confused with someone more witty, a cleverer writer.
Anyways, I made my big debut today, so check it out!
Let me tell you about the last time I was at the gym. This was several months ago and I experienced what was quite possibly the most embarrassing moment I've had in a long time. Let me set the scene.
So I'm at the Bally's on Clark, well into my after work fitness routine. I do weights first because it's right after work so the gym is packed. There is a line about five people deep waiting for open treadmills and ellipticals. Arms and shoulders first, then abs, then legs. For some reason I really love doing bicep curls on the machine. I'm kind of obsessed with it. Today I did reps of 60 lbs. and felt some serious burn. I love to see how much I can actually do and then the next day I can't even lift my arms to put on mascara. It's fucking great. Oh and my left arm is like robo-arm. When I had my shoulder surgery, oh my god was it really nine years ago? Yeah, when I had that surgery I couldn't work out my right arm for like six months, so basically all I did was weights with my left arm. So what I was left with was a weakling right arm and a body builder left arm. Anyway the point of that story is that I'm a freak. Moving on.
After weights I warm up on the bike for five minutes and by the grace of god, find an open treadmill. I don't start out running, because well, I'm Megan Gates and running is my nemesis. I walk briskly at an incline of 15 for twenty minutes. During my cooldown I spot an open elliptical. Let me preface this with I HATE CARDIO. Hate. If I didn't have to do it, I wouldn't. Which pretty much accounts for the extra ell-bees I've put on the past five years I haven't worked out at all. But I digress.
I stroll over to the elliptical and plan on doing about fifteen-twenty minutes and then calling it quits. This is seriously ambitious of me and as I center my feet on the foot pedals I feel a slightly smug sense of accomplishment. Ok, so I'm on the thing for like ten minutes, huffing and puffing, bouncing away to my iPod and I'm full on sweating. Oh here's another thing about me, I sweat when I exercise. A lot. I'm a Gates. We sweat. Ask anyone. So I reach for my towel to dry my face when my headphones get tangled up in the towel, forcing my iPod to dangle haphazardly in limbo between the ledge of the elliptical and the ground. As I struggle to get a hold of it before it hits the ground, mid Fall Out Boy's newest single on my workout playlist, I lose my footing and ohmygoditwaslikeinthemovieswheneverything is. in. slow. motion. and. you. can't. stop. yourself. from. falling.
The next thing I know I'm on the ground, one leg straddling the pedals, half off the machine, half on. The guy next to me GETS OFF HIS ELLIPTICAL, as if I hadn't caused enough of a scene already, and keep in mind I'm at the Bally's on Clark right near Boystown, so he's all in his tightass sleeveless tank and shouts because he still has his headphones on, "OHHHH HONEY ARE YOU ALRIIIGHT? OH MY GAHHHD LET ME HELP YOU UP!"
So not only did I fall off the goddamn elliptical, but I fell off the elliptical in the VERY FRONT ROW of the gym, during peak hours so the gym was AT CAPACITY, fucking sweating my balls off, getting assisted by a very gay man with an ass so much better than my own its shameful.
Sigh.
I got back on like a champ though, and I'm pretty sure I could hear distant clapping behind me.
Since then I've taken up running. On the street. At night. When no one can see me.
So maybe I am imperfect--flawed. Somebody slap a 20% off imperfection discount sticker on me and kick me off the shelf. You vilify me with your classic good looks and spotless smile. I will never be as good as you claim to be, though I am not sure that is something I want. I am the blackened B flat to your gleaming ivory C note. You're always the hero of the chord and I fumble along behind, the awkward sounding crescendo that follows.
But there is something damaged beneath your halo that makes me hang around, makes me risk being swallowed by the tide as I paddle through the overwhelming wave of you. I've had stronger emotional connections with family pets. But I'm still here. Layer upon layer, my emotions fall over me, thick and covering. Like an art student's over-puttied reproduction of the David, I have become unrecognizable. It's my defense and I have reasons for it. What are yours?
And as I watch the corners of your mouth upturn for another one of your casual, persuasive smiles, I catch your eye and for an ephemeral moment there is something there more intimate.
You are not without.
So this weekend I was over at my parent's house doing odds and ends, setting up my mom's wireless router, etc. and I decided to take the long way home for a change.
The long way is not that impressive, just a maze of side streets and raised ranch houses, amidst a flurry of parks named after trees. Oak, Maple, Willow.
These are streets I grew up on, walked home from elementary school and junior high on, had my childhood bumps and bruises on.
Somewhere in between those streets and parks and childhood stumbles, I grew up.
But not really.
I am a shade over twenty-seven and I don't feel a shadow over seventeen. I still go over to my parent's house to do laundry and borrow money from my dad. I buy my toothpaste at the Dollar Store and overdraw my checking account. I don't pick up after myself and I leave food in the fridge past its date.
Somewhere in between the rent payments, Roth IRAs, and paying my student loans, I grew up.
Had to.
But not really.
...that means you got the apartment!
Holler. Signed the lease yesterday. This new apartment is going to take me places, I know it.
I can't wait for October, and not just because I get better looking every day.
My heart pounds at the idea of tuning into this again on NBC this fall...
If you're anything like me, you had a teenage crush on Nitro, lived to joust, and owned your own red, white and blue bandana sweatband.
GIDDY UP!
I'm sure my roommate loves it every month around that time when I walk into the bathroom and then five minutes later I shout, "Woo hoo! Not pregnant!" It's kind of our little ritual.
The seats fold down into a comfortable recline, the cup holders are conveniently located, what more could a tenant ask for?
Hmmm...let me think...how about a livable apartment in the city of Chicago?
Apparently, when you're looking for an apartment, that criteria is simply out of the question.
Let's go back to 2005 when I moved into my lovely Lakeview apartment. My roommate and I probably searched for two months straight before settling on the place we live now. The thing is, we had high hopes, high expectations, and someone should have told us that that is just not practical when looking for an apartment.
Basically, what we came away with was a 700 sq/ft hot box money pit. Seriously, we turned our air conditioning on in April and it just cooled down our apartment yesterday.
For starters, our leasing agency is a joke. DO NOT RENT FROM ENTERPRISE LEASING. I'm just going to go ahead and put that out there. It took them three months and threatening to hold our rent in escrow until they replaced our dishwasher. Oh and it wasn't just broken. There was filthy, disease-infested water standing in the bottom of it just breeding West Nile. Finally they came and replaced our dishwasher with an even older one, and left the broken dishwasher on our back porch for three more months.
And then there is the shower. It's hard for me to even talk about the shower. 
Every morning I wake up and take what can only be described as the worst shower in the world. Every morning I do this because I have no other choice.
Here's how it goes down.
I have to set my alarm for twenty minutes earlier than I want to get up, just so I can run my ass in my skivvies to the bathroom to turn on the shower, full blast, as hot as it can go. Even though I do this, it still comes out freezing cold for the first fifteen minutes.
After that I run my ass back to my bedroom and jump under the covers until my alarm clock's snooze alarm rings again. Then I roll around in my bed for about two minutes more, cursing and moaning, running the gamut of emotions from strong anger to optimism. Finally I get out of bed and run back to the bathroom and get in the shower.
Most often the shower is still on the chilly side when I get in, which you know...is really pleasant. I probably should preface this with a description of my actual shower head. It's not one of those you know, normal shower heads with the plastic part with the holes in it where the actual water comes out.
Its just a pipe sticking out of the wall. Seriously.
It has a metal "filter" over the pipe's opening that looks like someone just stabbed it with a knife a few times to make holes for the water to come out. This causes an erratic spray of water to actually come out of the "shower head". Because of that, the stream of water is stronger on one side of the shower than the other and it's basically like a jet stream. So the right side of the shower is like a light misting, while the left side of the shower burns laser beam holes through the left side of my body.
The only problem with this is that if I actually want to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, I have to stand under the jet stream which is not actually that harsh, but in my shower the temperature is...well...tempermental.
As I mentioned before, when you first turn on the shower you have to turn it all the way to the left, as hot as it can go because it takes fifteen minutes to heat up anyway. Once you get in, it's still not very hot, but then all of a sudden...maybe three minutes into my shower, it will get unbearably hot. At that point I have to stand under the jet stream to turn the nozzle maybe a millimeter to the right which will then make it extremely cold for a minute before it actually gets to the right temperature.
I am almost positive the people who live upstairs think we run some sort of S&M thing through our apartment from the screams coming from below in the morning. I literally horror movie scream every morning. If my roommate is asleep I scream silently. It's a horrible experience.
Oh, and I forgot to I mention that our tub is incessantly clogged, even after seven trips from the landlord's maintenance lackeys. So when I initially get into the shower, there is about a foot of standing water in the tub--and it's freezing since it takes so long to heat up. I don't even want to know what kind of bacteria thrive in that disgusting water. I've thought about buying a pair of rain boots or weighters just to take a shower.
And a bath? Well, that's not something we talk about.
So every morning I stand, hopping from one side of the shower to another in a foot of my own shower water, soap in my eyes and screaming. Trying to avoid touching the mold growing on the window sill--oftentimes entertaining the low cost option alternative of growing my own penicillin in my shower to avoid prescription drug costs.
Maybe this is why I'm not a morning person.
But as usual, I digress.
Apartment hunting. We've been at it for about three weeks now, only to realize we found "the one" at our first appointment. Of course, if there's an available apartment in this building, its not going to last. And it didn't. And because of my unreasonable optimism, I thought, "Well, we can't just settle for the first apartment we see, right?"
Yeah, actually you can. And you should.
Needless to say, when I realized my mistake, the apartment was gone. So we went back to the drawing board. We saw big places, small places, places in the South Loop, places in West Town, shitty places, amazing places and everything in between.
And finally, FINALLY we found something we both loved. I remember turning to Laura while the guy was showing us the place and not so casually whisper-shouting, "I WANT THIS APARTMENT."
Here's the problem. There were about 12 other people who were not so casually whisper-shouting the same thing to their respective roommates. As we waited outside in the rain for applications, I turned to Laura and said, "Am I gonna have to throw down today?" I mean seriously.
What ensued was an epic Battle Royale of scheming, conniving, hair pulling, and cattiness. This is Chicago people. There is like one acceptable apartment every 20 blocks.
Ok, so maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but I did have to take down a gay couple, but they were easy targets. Actually, to my satisfaction, all we had to do was flirt a little with the rental agent, who I'm not so unassumingly having a steamy, over the phone, love affair with. My roommate met him in the Loop yesterday to drop off our application fee checks and jokingly told me he complimented her on her hair. *Cut to me smothering her in her sleep*
No, but seriously, while the rental agent was showing us the apartment, Laura stopped me mid-sentence as the words, "Who do I need to..." came out of my mouth.
Apparently, she thought I was going to say, "Who do I need to blow to get this apartment?"
I mean, that's my style and all, but come on! I have tact! Well, some. Ok, very little.
To make a long story short, pending our current douche-bag leasing company doesn't completely fuck us, we'll get the apartment.
And here's the best part...Don and Jebus, you'll appreciate the value of this: It's right above Sedgwick's the local Lincoln Park Iowa bar. 
It's a match made in heaven.
What we have is commercial. What we have is box and sell. It's lovely and marketable and safe. We wrote the music, but someone else is singing our song. We're pretending.
We are boys and girls dressing up for our first school play, with mom and dad whispering the script to us from behind a red velvet curtain backstage. And I am standing on stage, blinded by the spotlight, wordless and waiting for my next line.
I see the antithesis of us in cherubic actor faces on the big screen and in the wistful lines of really good novels. I live that life out in my daydreams when you see me for the first time in a real way. And for almost a decade I have constantly nipped at the heels of something that may not even exist. For me. With you.
We are lying on the floor of my kitchen and all around us the cabinets are overflowing with cookie cutters and we are buried in the heap.
Today marks the beginning of this weekend's Air & Water Show in Chicago. It's fine and everything, if you like boats and planes and all that shit. Which I don't, but whatever.
Here's the thing though, every year without fail, I forget what weekend the show is and then when the planes fly over at Mach 10, like 50 feet above my head, I think we're being divebombed by terrorists.
I live right by the lake, so literally, the skies darken and my apartment shakes. Last year my dad and I were unassumingly walking down Broadway by Wellington, with our iced coffees from the Bobtail and a huge F150 (I know that's a truck, but this is my story) fly overhead. I totally pushed my dad out of the way and took cover in an alley. Hey, if the apocolypse is coming, every man for himself.
Not to mention the traffic and the mouth agaped tourists just standing around looking at the sky in the fucking parking spot I am trying to parallel park my car in.
So that's my post for today. The fucking "wings and waves" have invaded Chicago again. F-ing a.
I love hockey. No, wait. I *LOVE* hockey. I don't know how or why or when I started to love hockey. I just do. If any of you are in the immediate Chicagoland area, call me and I'll take you to a Hawks game. No, they may not be the best team in the league, but I guarantee you won't have a better time. No, I challenge you to have a better time.
There. I said it.
Hockey players are the hottest athletes in the world. Don't contest me on that. Every other athlete lacks that sheer ruggedness, that I will throw these gloves right off and beat the hell out of you, my slapshot is faster than your car, fuck all, I'm better than you, cockiness that hockey players possess.
Baseball, football, soccer...no one can touch my hockey haired honies.
Let's take a look.
Steve Yzerman
Ahh, the veteran. I would let Stevie Y do dental work on me. Not to mention he is an unfuckingbelievable hockey player. DETROIT whuuut.
Brendan Shanahan
Shanny. My second favorite player in the NHL. He's fucking good. He's Irish. He'll fight you. And then there's this: Participated in public service campaign for abused children and has worked with the Detroit Fire Department to ensure many lower income Detroit homes get proper smoke detectors installed....Brendan purchased many of those smoke detectors himself. I FUCKING LOVE YOU.
Mike Modano
Even when you frosted your tips, I still loved you. Note the devilish grin. YES.
Chris Chelios
Possesses all of that been hit in the face with an elbow, broken-nosed charm that you come to expect. Where have you been though, Cheli?
Teemu Selanne
Yeah, you're hot. Even though you're a Duck. And even though you don't have hockey hair anymore. But you were on the All Star team like 19 years in a row, so I'll give it you.
Martin LaPointe
God I love those French-Canadians. Marty LaPointe is and has been my favorite hockey player since my sister claimed Shanny as hers. Ok, to be fair, not all of the hottest NHL players are from Detroit. Although I'm biased as a lifelong Red Wings fan. I like that he's rough around the edges. He plays for Chicago now. Come on home, daddy!
Ok, I literally have to stop myself because I could list many, many more. I could go all day. Of the like, ten guys I’ve dated in this lifetime, half of them have been hockey players. Its no coincidence. Once hockey season starts, I always find myself wanting a nice, scarred up hockey player to love again.
Only 34 days until pre-season starts. I'm wrestling over ordering the 22-game partial season ticket plan or the 11-game plan. Neither of which I can afford, but I figure that'll work itself out later. Important. Hockey. Now.
Blackhawks games are a mess for me. I’m always the one on TV in my red Shanny jersey spilling beer on the people in front of me and writing obscene things on the glass with my lipgloss.
Which brings me to this moment. A lot of you are new readers or don’t know me that well, but allow me to geek out for a minute. Let’s talk about the day I MET MARTY LAPOINTE.
I nearly peed myself.
I unassumingly walked into the Corner Bakery in Hinsdale for lunch a couple months ago when I spotted this really hot guy from across the restaurant. Hmmm. Why do I feel like I know that guy? Did I give him my number at a bar? He's SO familiar.
Then the realization. Wait for it....wait for iiiiiiit.
I whisper-shouted to the girl I was with, "OH MY GOD THAT'S MARTY LAPOINTE."
She looked at me quizzically, "Who?"
Then we made eye contact. Oh dear god, I've loved this man for over ten years and now he is right in front of me in his camo cargos and rumpled grey NHLPA sweatshirt in all of his goateed hotness.
I was at a crossroads. What do I do? Do I risk missing this moment in time forever because my hands are shaking and all I want to do is pull him into the women's handicapped stall and maul him?
No. I'm going to be cool about this.
This man has no idea I have his photo on my fridge at home. He has no idea I've come to games bearing signs that read, "Marty LaPointe, put it in MY FIVE HOLE." He has no idea how I feel about hockey players in general.
It took all I had not to pull up this photo from my photo site on my Sidekick and prove my love to him. Seriously. I'm that big of a fan. Or that big of a dork. You decide.
So basically I decided that no matter what, he wasn't leaving the restaurant without talking to me. As he was walking toward the door, I sauntered up to him and casually said, "I am a huge fan of yours. All the way back to your Detroit days."
I totally blacked out after that so I have no recollection of what he responded with. All I know is that I touched his arm and he smiled and then I came to, hands shaking at my table.
"What just happened?" I asked my friend. "I cannot believe I just met Marty LaPointe."
*Cut to me frantically texting every hockey fan I knew including my sister, my brother, two of the said ex-boyfriends, a roommate, and finally my boss at my old job.*
Best. Day. Ever.
So from one puckbunnie to the next, I leave you with this: 
God I love it when they fight.
I think VH1 is debuting this as we speak. You should tune in.
5. One characteristic of Awesomefest is that it usually takes place in either Chicago or New York City. This moment, however, grandfathered in all awesomely awesome Awesomefest moments to follow. Spring Break 2002, Panama City.
4. The one where Donnelly runs the Chicago Marathon, aka the PG-13 Awesomefest. October 2006. Donnelly couldn't drink, so I took the reigns while we were at the Iowa/Michigan game at Barleycorn. Best friends do that for each other. That below bruise is what I get for drinking for two. Oh I also failed to mention that in my drunken, beat up state, that I proceeded to call my ex at 6 p.m. for a booty call. His response, "I'm eating dinner, Gates!??"
3. My first NYC Awesomefest. May 2006. I remember five things about that trip. Pizza. SoCo shots. Stripper pole. Sweetbreads. And Spanish Harlem.
2. Awesomefest7000, Chicago, June 2007. Sexy knife poses and THE GAYS.
1. The very first Awesomefest in Chicago, way back in December of 2005. Donnelly took a cab directly from O'Hare to my neighborhood watering hole, Durkin's. I introduced her to vodka bottle shots and Allende burritos at 4 a.m. Oh. And it goes without saying that I also introduced her to the monstrosity that is Beaumont's. See the beginning of this post for explanation. 
Donnelly, are you ready to make this a top 10 list at AF2008 in two weeks?
The best thing about memories is their accessibility; that shelvable quality. There is no searching through cluttered drawers to find them, no late fees or need for a net to catch them with. No permission slips or sell by date.
You can replay them like a slide show in your mind any time you want. Any memory, anywhere, any time. They are convenient and kept close, like words on the tip of your tongue, or spare change in a jar.
The only problem is, once the slide show is over, all you are left with is a blank wall.
Yep. That's what my sister said on Tuesday while waiting for our flight out of Florida.
And the thing is, I really want to, but she just mass produces these amazing bloggable moments.
Before I do that though, a little background...
This is Kate.
She is my identical twin sister. Kate and I are besties, as you would imagine. We lived together for about 24 years until I decided it was time to cut the umbilical cord.
I love my sister; she's the other half of me. If she didn't exist, I'm not so sure I could. We are closer than sisters, more loyal than friends and fiercely protective of each other. She's the blood and I'm the heart.
Kate and I are very different though. We're not your run-of-the-mill, carbon copy identical twins. On the surface, she's a brunette, I'm a blonde. She wears glasses, I wear contacts. I'm a self-proclaimed fashionista and her style is what I would describe as utilitarian chic. She's just as comfortable in her nursing scrubs as I am in my 4-inch stilettos.
Kate got all the smarts that I didn't. She exceled in Math and Science, while I leaned toward English and Art. She's practical and determined. I'm irrational and lazy.
Kate and I have very distinct personalities. Donnelly can back me up here, having lived with both of us for a time.
Kate is type-A. She works a very stressful job as a cardiac nurse, but it's perfect for her. She's very nurturing and has this intrinsic desire to take care of people. I get skeeved out just thinking about old people eating. You have the flu? I'll call you a cab to the doctor.
She's a worrier. When she drops me off at O'Hare for business trips, she takes 15 minutes to say goodbye and makes sure she tells me that she loves me at least twenty times before she drives away. She's a people pleaser through and through, a pacifist in a soldier's body. For me, there is no passive in my passive-agressiveness. I have no problem standing up for myself or for other people, almost to a fault. Kate has trouble sending back food at restaurants.
Day in and day out, she is a model human being. Every day she goes into work knowing she's going to get screamed at, spit on, clawed at, condescended to and she just dips into whatever reserve of untapped fortitude she keeps inside and keeps on going. I could never do what she does. I'd end up in handcuffs.
But beyond work, I think what I admire about her most is the way she loves. The way she loves people is completely honest. In relationships, she doesn't have the same pretenses, the same hangups and baggage as other people sometimes drag around with them. She comes to them as pure and noble as she leaves them. I don't think it's naivete. I think it's just an amazing ability to forgive.
The thing though about Kate is that she lives above a darker layer, sometimes hiding under it for days. Inside it she becomes pessimistic and maudlin and needs help being pulled out. All of the sudden she is the one who needs instead of the provider. She is reduced to tears at a moment's notice.
Her job forces her to display her demons afterhours.
Evidence of these demons is written all over slammed doors, busted plaster walls and screaming voicemails.
At times she's highstrung, uptight, and quick-tempered. She knows this. Gateses are nothing if not passionate. Passionate fucking lunatics.
But Kate is always who she is. She has no swiveling face she turns on for others. And the thing is, she doesn't see that as even a possibility. Kate is Kate for herself and no one else. And I'm proud of her for that.
And then there's me.
Imagine the opposite of all that and that's who I am. I strive to be better every day, but somehow I always find myself hovering over the not-quite-actualized label in Maslow's hierarchy.
The point is, and somehow I have digressed completely from a Florida recap to a get to know me post, that my sister and I are completely different. We're the Balki and Cousin Larry of the twin world.
Here's the thing though, we work. Maybe it's because we have to, maybe it's because estrangement isn't in a twin's vocabulary.
But maybe it's because we choose to be this way, each flaw in each other illuminating some other strength, some other unique quality in the other.
And somehow just by being her, I am me.
While I pen my brilliant Florida recap, check this out. I died the first time I watched it.
A conversation between Mortar and I about our respective past relationships really got me thinking today. I dont know why, but my mind kept wandering; in and out of relative thought, through the thick, sticky air of an August Florida evening, half concentrating on work, half somewhere else.
I guess if I didn't admit I am a true romantic, I'd be lying to myself. I have this idea of what love should be, of what it usually never is. And lately I've been thinking I might be more in love with the idea of love: the sometimes unrequitedness of it, with the fear that the other person won't fall, than I ever truly actually go through the motions of loving someone.
I guess I've come to realize that I look for relationships that have a certain quality of fear to them, of mystery. Of never knowing for sure. It's like asking for an answer to a question that you'll never really be satisfied with. You will always wonder if there is something more true, something more right.
I know a lot of you who know me well are probably reading this and are about five seconds away from calling 'bullshit' on me, but I've tried other ways, other relationships honestly, and they just don't work for me. And I know I probably deserve a relationship that fulfills all my wants and needs, but in the end, I'm not so sure that's what I really want.
For me, love should be challenging, and flawed, and constantly striving. It should be screaming at each other in an alley in the rain. It should be urgent and conflicting and impulsive. It should be all at once both compelling but unconvincing; unstable yet sustaining. And if anything, always consuming.
The obvious bet on why I feel this way could be because of my fairly small experience with falling in love, but I'd be careful there. I doubt that's a safe one.
I think I choose difficulty. Seek it.
Because I think the difficult is what makes it mean so much.
And I'm sure a lot of people won't believe me when I say that, or will disagree completely. And I'm also pretty sure all that conclusion really shows is my own immaturity, but for now, it's what works.
It's what scares the shit out of me and sends me running full speed the other way. It's what forces me to walk back slowly and peer around the corner, curious and enamored.
It's got me by throat though, that's for sure, dangling. And even at my last breath, I'd choose my kind of love over yours any day.
